
f)[ass_ -1) C. ^ Q 
Book -n 5 3 - 



COPYRIGHT DEPOSIT 



Castles and Chateaux 



OF 



OLD TOURAINE 



AND THE LOIR I 



By F 

Author of 



UNTRY 



"^ '« I ' T O IT N 



Reprodiued Jrom pain!- 

Blanche M c 7A 



A 'Peasant Girl ofY'ourame 




L. C. PAGE & COMPANY 

1906 



Castles and Chateaux 



OF 



OLD TOURAINE 



AND THE LOIRE COUNTRY 



By Francis Milto 



U N 



Author of " Rambles in Normandy," " Rambles in Brittany," 
" Rambles on the Riviera," etc. 

TVith Many Illustrations 
/Reproduced from paintings made on the spot 

By Blanche McManus 




Boston 

L. C. PAGE & COMPANY 

1906 



LIBRARY of CONGRESS 

Two Conies Received 

AUG 24 1906 
CLASS'«I< xxc:no. 



.3c^Q 



Copyright, igo6 
By L. C. Page & Company 

(Incorporated) 
All rights 7-eserved 



First Impression, June, 1906 



COLONIAL PRESS 

Electrotyped a7id Printed by C. H . Simonds &' Co. 

Boston, U.S.A. 



By Way of Introduction 



This book is not the result of ordinary con- 
ventional rambles, of sightseeing by day, and 
flying by night, but rather of leisurely wander- 
ings, for a somewhat extended period, along 
the banks of the Loire and its tributaries and 
through the countryside dotted with those 
splendid monuments of Renaissance architec- 
ture which have perhaps a more appealing in- 
terest for strangers than any other similar 
edifices wherever found. 

Before this book was projected, the conven- 
tional tour of the chateau country had been 
^' done," Baedeker, Joanne and James's '' Lit- 
tle Tour " in hand. On another occasion An- 
gers, with its almost inconceivably real cas- 
tellated fortress, and Nantes, with its memories 
of the " Edict " and '' La Duchesse Anne," 
had been tasted and digested en route to a cer- 
tain little artist's village in Brittany. 

On another occasion, when we were headed 
due south, we lingered for a time in the upper 



vi By Way of Introduction 

valley, between " the little Italian city of Ne- 
vers ' ' and ' ' the most picturesque spot in the 
world " — Le Puy. 

But all this left certain ground to be cov- 
ered, and certain gaps to be filled, though the 
author's note-books were numerous and full to 
overflowing with much comment, and the ar- 
tist's portfolio was already bulging with its 
contents. 

So more note-books were bought, and, fol- 
lowing the genial Mark Twain's advice, an- 
other fountain pen and more crayons and 
sketch-books, and the author and artist set out 
in the beginning of a warm September to fill 
those gaps and to reduce, if possible, that series 
of rambles along the now flat and now rolling 
banks of the broad blue Loire to something 
like consecutiveness and uniformity ; with what 
result the reader may judge. 



Contents 



Bt Way of Introduction . 

I. A General Survey 

II. The Orl:^annais 

III. The Blaisois and the Sologne 

IV. Chambord . . . o 
V. Cheverny, Beauregard, and Chaumont 

VI. Touraine : The Garden Spot of France 

VII. Amboise .... 

VIII. Chenonceaux . 

IX. LOCHES .... 

X. Tours and About There 

XI. Luynes and Langeais . 

XII. AzAY - LE - RiDEAU, USSE, AND 

XIII. Anjou and Bretagne . 

XIV. South of the Loire 
XV. Berry and George Sand's Country 

XVI. The Upper Loire . 

Index .... 



Chinon 



PAGE 

V 

1 

30 
56 
94 
110 
128 
148 
171 
188 
203 
221 
241 
273 
301 
313 
330 
337 



List of Illustrations 



A Peasant Girl of Touraine 

Itinerary of the Loire (Map) 

A Lace - maker of the Upper Loire 

The Loire Chateaux (Map) 

The Ancient Provinces of the Loire Val 

LEY AND Their Capitals (Map) 
The Loire near La Charit:^ . 

COIFFES OF AmBOISE AND ORLEANS 

The Chateaux of the Loire (Map 

Environs of Orleans (Map) 

The Loiret . . . 

The Loire at Meung 

Beaugency .... 

Arms of the City of Blois 

The Riverside at Blois . 

Signature of Francois Premier 

Cypher of Anne de Bretagne, at Blois 

Arms of Louis XIL .... 

Central Doorway, Chateau de Blois . facing 

The Chateaux of Blois (Diagram) 

Cypher of Franqois Premier and Claude of 

France, at Blois 

Native Types in the Sologne 
Donjon of Montrichard . . . facing 

Arms of Franqois Premier, at Chambord 
Plan of Chateau de Chambord 
Chateau de Chambord .... facing 

ix 



PAGE 

Frontispiece 



facing 
facing 



facing 
facing 
facing 

facing 
facing 
facing 

facing 



1 
4 
9 

15 

18 

20 

30. 

39 

42 

46 

50 

58 

58 

60 

62 

65 

66^ 

71 

72 

89 

92 ^ 

99 
103 
104 



List of Illustrations 



. 113 

facing 116 

. 118 

facing 134 

facing 142 

facing 148 



PAGE 

Chateau de Cheveiny •. . . . facing 110 
Cheverny - suR - Loire . . . 

Chaumont 

Signature of Diane ^e Poitiers . 

The Loire in Touraine . 

The Vintage in Touraine 

Chateau d'Amboise .... 

Sculpture from the Chapelle de St. Hubert facing 164 

Cypher of Anne de Bketagne, Hotel de 

ViLLE, Amboise 168 

Chateau de Chenonceaux . . . facing 178 

Chateau de Chenonceaux (Diagram) . . . 179 

Loches 189 

Loches and Its Church .... facing 192 

Sketch Plan of Loches 198 

St. Ours, Loches facing 198 

Tours facing 202 

Arms of the Printers, A vocats, and Inn- 
keepers, Tours 205 

Scene in the Quartier de la Cath^drale, 

Tours facing 208 

Plessis - LES - Tours in the Time of Louis XI. . 213 

Environs op Tours (Map) 219 

A Vineyard of Vouvray . . . facing 222 
Medieval Stairway and the Chateau de 

LuYNES facing 224 

Ruins of Cinq -Mars facing 228 

Chateau de Langeais .... facing 232 

Arms of Louis XII. and Anne de Bretagne . 237 

Chateau d'Azay-le-Rideau . . . facing 244 

Chateau d'Ussi^ facing 248 

The Roof-tops of Chinon . . . facing 252 

Rabelais 255 

Chateau de Chinon facing 258 

Cuisines, Fontevrault 265 



List of Illustrations 



XI 



Chateau de Saumur 

The Fonts de Ci 

Chateau d'Angeks 

Environs of Nantes (Map) 

Donjon of the Chateau de Clisson 

Berry (Map) .... 

La Tour, Sancerre . 

Chateau de Gien 

Chateau de Valenqay 

Gateway of Mehun-sur -Yevre 

Le Carrior Dor^, Romorantin 

IEglise S. Aignan, Cosne . 

PouiLLY-suR -Loire 

Porte du Croux, Nevers . . 



facing 
facing 
facing 

facing 



facing 
facing 
facing 



facing 
facing 



PAGE 

276 
284 
288 
297 
306 
313 
317 
318 
322 
324 
325 
331 
332 
334 




/ c/e GrotK 



.OACHATEAUDUN V^ \ V.v) 

" "S-n=,?<^"-'V!5!^ str'Si AUXERR& 



montarcis 

joignV 



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A/o/rmoi:!/eP<s 



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lled'Yeu 



Itinerary 

LOIRE 



/0X0 30 40 SO /Ccfom. 

S^oute 






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COURDON 



Castles and Chateaux 
of Old Touraine 

and the Loire Country 



CHAPTER I. 



A GENERAL SUEVEY 



Any account of the Loire and of the towns 
along its banks must naturally have for its 
chief mention Touraine and the long line of 
splendid feudal and Renaissance chateaux 
which reflect themselves so gloriously in its 
current. 

The Loire possesses a certain fascination 
and charm which many other more commer- 
cially great rivers entirely lack, and, while the 
element of absolute novelty cannot perforce 
be claimed for it, it has the merit of appeal- 
ing largely to the lover of the romantic and 

the picturesque. 

1 



2 Old Touraine and the Loire Country 

A French writer of a hundred years ago dedi- 
cated his work on Touraine to " Le Baron de 
Langeais, le Vicomte de Beaumont, le Marquis 
de Beauregard, le Comte de Fontenailles, le 
Comte de Jouffroy-Gonsans, le Due de Luynes, 
le Comte de Vouvray, le Comte de Villeneuve, 
et als.; '' and he might have continued with a 
directory of all the descendants of the noblesse 
of an earlier age, for he afterward grouped 
them under the general category of " Proprie- 
taires des fortresses et chateaux les plus re- 
marquables — au point de vue Jiistorique ou 
architectural." 

He was fortunate in being able, as he said, 
to have had access to their '^ papier s de fa- 
mille/' their souvenirs, and to have been able 
to interrogate them in person. 

Most of his facts and his gossip concerning 
the personalities of the later generations of 
those who inhabited these magnificent estab- 
lishments have come down to us through later 
writers, and it is fortunate that this should be 
the case, since the present-day aspect of the 
chateaux is ever changing, and one who views 
them to-day is chagrined when he discovers, 
for instance, that an iron-trussed, red-tiled 
wash-house has been built on the banks of the 
Cosson before the magnificent chateau of 



A General Survey 



Chambord, and that somewhere within the con- 
fines of the old castle at Loches a shopkeeper 
has hung out his shingle, announcing a newly 
discovered dungeon in his own basement, acci- 
dentally come upon when digging a well. 

Balzac, Rabelais, and Descartes are the lead- 
ing literary celebrities of Tours, and Balzac's 
* ' Le Lys dans la Vallee ' ' will give one a more 
delightful insight into the old life of the Tou- 
rangeaux than whole series of guide-books and 
shelves of dry histories. 

Blois and its counts. Tours and its bishops, 
and Amboise and its kings, to say nothing of 
Fontevrault, redolent of memories of the 
Plantagenets, Nantes and its famous " Edict," 
and its equally infamous '' Revocation," have 
left vivid impress upon all students of French 
history. Others will perhaps remember Nantes 
for Dumas 's brilliant descriptions of the out- 
come of the Breton conspiracy. 

All of us have a natural desire to know more 
of historic ground, and whether we make a 
start by entering the valley of the Loire at the 
luxurious midway city of Tours, and follow 
the river first to the sea and then to the source, 
or make the journey from source to mouth, or 
vice versa, it does not matter in the least. We 
traverse the same ground and we meet the 



4 Old Touraine and the Loire Country 

same varying conditions as we advance a hun- 
dred kilometres in either direction. 

Tours, for example, stands for all that is 
typical of the sunny south. Prune and palm 
trees thrust themselves forward in strong con- 
trast to the cider-apples of the lower Seine. 
Below Tours one is almost at the coast, and 
the tables d'hote are abundantly supplied with 
sea-food of all sorts. Above Tours the Or- 
leannais is typical of a certain well-to-do, mat- 
ter-of-fact existence, neither very luxurious 
nor very difficult. 

Nevers is another step and resembles some- 
what the opulence of Burgundy as to condi- 
tions of life, though the general aspect of the 
city, as well as a great part of its history, is 
Italian through and through. 

The last great step begins at Le Puy, in the 
great volcanic Massif Centrale, where condi- 
tions of life, if prosperous, are at least harder 
than elsewhere. 

Such are the varying characteristics of the 
towns and cities through which the Loire flows. 
They run the whole gamut from gay to earnest 
and solemn; from the ease and comfort of 
the country around Tours, almost sub-tropical 
in its softness, to the grime and smoke of busy 




A Lace-maker 0} the Upper Loire 



A G-eneral Survey 



St. Etienne, and the chilliness and rigours of 
a mountain winter at Le Puy. 

These districts are all very full of memories 
of events which have helped to build up the 
solidarity of France of to-day, though the 
Nantois still proudly proclaims himself a 
Breton, and the Tourangeau will tell you that 
his is the tongue, above all others, which 
speaks the purest French, — and so on through 
the whole category, each and every citizen of 
a petit pays living up to his traditions to the 
fullest extent possible. 

In no other journey in France, of a similar 
length, will one see as many varying contrasts 
in conditions of life as he will along the length 
of the Loire, the broad, shallow river which 
St. Martin, Charles Martel, and Louis XL, 
the typical figures of church, arms, and state, 
came to know so well. 

Du Bellay, a poet of the Eenaissance, has 
sung the praises of the Loire in a manner un- 
approached by any other topographical poet, 
if one may so call him, for that is what he 
really was in this particular instance. 

There is a great deal of patriotism in it all, 
too, and certainly no sweet singer of the 
present day has even approached these lines, 



6 Old Touraine and the Loire Country 

which are eulogistic without being fulsome 
and fervent without being lurid. 

The verses have frequently been rendered 
into English, but the following is as good as 
any, and better than most translations, though 
it is one of those fragments of " newspaper 
verse " whose authors are lost in obscurity. 

« Mightier to me the house my fathers made, 

Than your audacious heads, O Halls of Rome ! 
More than immortal marbles undecayed, 

The thin sad slates that cover up my home ; 
More than your Tiber is my Loire to me, 

More Palatine my little Lyr6 there ; 
And more than all the winds of all the sea, 

The quiet kindness of the Angevin air." 

In history the Loire valley is rich indeed, 
from the days of the ancient Counts of Tou- 
raine to those of Mazarin, who held forth at 
Nevers. Touraine has well been called the 
heart of the old French monarchy. 

Provincial France has a charm never known 
to Paris-dwellers. Balzac and Flaubert were 
provincials, and Dumas was a city-dweller, — 
and there lies the difference between them. 

Balzac has written most charmingly of Tou- 
raine in many of his books, in " Le Lys dans 
la Vallee " and " Le Cure de Tours " in par- 
ticular; not always in complimentary terms. 



A General Survey- 



either, for he has said that the Tourangeaux 
will not even inconvenience themselves to go 
in search of pleasure. This does not bespeak 
indolence so much as philosophy, so most of 
us will not cavil. George Sand's country lies 
a little to the southward of Touraine, and 
Berry, too, as the authoress herself has said, 
has a climate *' souple et chaud, avec pluie 
abondant et courte." 

The architectural remains in the Loire val- 
ley are exceedingly rich and varied. The feu- 
dal system is illustrated at its best in the great 
walled chateau at Angers, the still inhabited 
and less grand chateau at Langeais, the ruins 
at Cinq-Mars, and the very scanty remains of 
Plessis-les-Tours. 

The ecclesiastical remains are quite as great. 
The churches are, many of them, of the first 
rank, and the great cathedrals at Nantes, An- 
gers, Tours, and Orleans are magnificent ex- 
amples of the church-builders' art in the mid- 
dle ages, and are entitled to rank among the 
great cathedrals, if not actually of the first 
class. 

With modern civic and other public build- 
ings, the case is not far different. Tours has 
a gorgeous Hotel de Ville, its architecture be- 
ing of the most luxuriant of modern French 



8 Old Touraine and the Loire Country 

Renaissance, while the railway stations, even, 
at both Tours and Orleans, are models of what 
railway stations should be, and in addition are 
decoratively beautiful in their appointments 
and arrangements, — which most railway sta- 
tions are not. 

Altogether, throughout the Loire valley 
there is an air of prosperity which in a more 
vigorous climate is often lacking. This in 
spite of the alleged tendency in what is com- 
monly known as a relaxing climate toward 
laisser-aller. 

Finally, the picturesque landscape of the 
Loire is something quite different from the 
harder, grayer outlines of the north. All is of 
the south, warm and ruddy, and the wooded 
banks not only refine the crudities of a flat 
shore-line, but form a screen or barrier to the 
flowering charms of the examples of Renais- 
sance architecture which, in Touraine, at least, 
are as thick as leaves in Vallambrosa. 

Starting at Gien, the valley of the Loire be- 
gins to offer those monumental chateaux which 
have made its fame as the land of castles. 
From the old fortress-chateau of Gien to the 
Chateau de Clisson, or the Logis de la Duchesse 
Anne at Nantes, is one long succession of florid 
masterpieces, not to be equalled elsewhere. 



A General Survey 9 

The true chateau region of Touraine — by 
which most people usually comprehend the 
Loire chateaux — commences only at Blois. 
Here the edifices, to a great extent, take on 
these superfine residential attributes which 
were the glory of the Eenaissance period of 
French architecture. 

Both above and below Touraine, at Mont- 

THE LOIRE CHATEAUX' 

• FIRST CLASS "^ , 
© SECOND ■>■> 

• THIRD ■»» 
=^ ROUTES 
•--. (RAILWAYS 




richard, at Leches, and Beaugency, are still to 
be found scattering examples of feudal for- 
tresses and donjons which are as representa- 
tive of their class as are the best Norman struc- 
tures of the same era, the great fortresses of 
Arques, Falaise, Domfront, and Les Andelys 
being usually accounted as the types which 
gave the stimulus to similar edifices elsewhere. 
In this same versatile region also, beginning 



10 Old Touraine and the Loire Country 

perhaps with the Orleannais, are a vast number 
of religious monuments equally celebrated. 
For instance, the church of St. Benoit-sur- 
Loire is one of the most important Roman- 
esque churches in all France, and the cathedral 
of St. Gatien, with its " bejewelled facade," 
at Tours, the twin-spired St. Maurice at An- 
gers, and even the pompous, and not very good 
Gothic, edifice at Orleans (especially note- 
worthy because its crypt is an ancient work 
anterior to the Capetian dynasty) are all won- 
derfully interesting and imposing examples of 
mediaeval ecclesiastical architecture. 

Three great tributaries enter the Loire below 
Tours, the Cher, the Indre, and the Vienne. 
The first has for its chief attractions the Re- 
naissance chateaux St. Aignan and Chenon- 
ceaux, the Roman remains of Chabris, Thezee, 
and Largay, the Romanesque churches of 
Selles and St. Aignan, and the feudal donjon 
of Montrichard. The Indre possesses the cha- 
teau of Azay-le-Rideau and the sombre for- 
tresses of Montbazon and Loches; while the 
Vienne depends for its chief interest upon the 
galaxy of fortress-chateaux at Chinon. 

The Loire is a mighty river and is navigable 
for nearly nine hundred kilometres of its 
length, almost to Le Puy, or, to be exact, to 



A General Survey 11 

the little town of Vorey in the Department of 
the Haute Loire. 

At Orleans, Blois, or Tours one hardly real- 
izes this, much less at Nevers. The river ap- 
pears to be a great, tranquil, docile stream, 
with scarce enough water in its bed to make 
a respectable current, leaving its beds and bars 
of sable and cailloux bare to the sky. 

The scarcity of water, except at occasional 
flood, is the principal and obvious reason for 
the absence of water-borne traffic, even though 
a paternal ministerial department of the gov- 
ernment calls the river navigable. 

At the times of the grandes crues there are 
four metres or more registered on the big scale 
at the Pont d'Ancenis, while at other times it 
falls to less than a metre, and when it does 
there is a mere rivulet of water which trickles 
through the broad river-bottom at Chaumont, 
or Blois, or Orleans. Below Ancenis naviga- 
tion is not so difficult, but the current is more 
strong. 

From Blois to Angers, on the right bank, 
extends a long dike which carries the roadway 
beside the river for a couple of hundred kilo- 
metres. This is one of the charms of travel 
by the Loire. The only thing usually seen on 
the bosom of the river, save an occasional fish- 



12 Old Touraine and the Loire Country 

ing punt, is one of those great flat-bottomed 
ferry-boats, with a square sail hung on a yard 
amidships, such as Turner always made an 
accompaniment to his Loire pictures, for con- 
ditions of traffic on the river have not greatly 
changed. 

Whenever one sees a barge or a boat worthy 
of classification with those one finds on the 
rivers of the east or north, or on the great 
canals, it is only about a quarter of the usual 
size; so, in spite of its great navigable length, 
the waterway of the Loire is to be considered 
more as a picturesque and healthful element 
of the landscape than as a commercial prop- 
osition. 

Where the great canals join the river at Or- 
leans, and from Chatillon to Eoanne, the traffic 
increases, though more is carried by the canal- 
boats on the Canal Lateral than by the barges 
on the Loire. 

It is only on the Loire between Angers and 
Nantes that there is any semblance of river 
traffic such as one sees on most of the other 
great waterways of Europe. There is a con- 
siderable traffic, too, which descends the Maine, 
particularly from Angers downward, for An- 
gers with its Italian skies is usually thought 
of, and really is to be considered, as a Loire 



A General Survey 13 

town, though it is actually on the banks of the 
Maine some miles from the Loire itself. 

One thousand or more bateaux make the as- 
cent to Angers from the Loire at La Pointe 
each year, all laden with a miscellaneous cargo 
of merchandise. The Sarthe and the Loir also 
bring a notable agricultural traffic to the 
greater Loire, and the smaller confluents, the 
Dive, the Thouet, the Authion, and the Layon, 
all go to swell the parent stream until, when 
it reaches Nantes, the Loire has at last taken 
on something of the aspect of a well-ordered 
and useful stream, characteristics which above 
Nantes are painfully lacking. Because of its 
lack of commerce the Loire is in a certain way 
the most noble, magnificent, and aristocratic 
river of France; and so, too, it is also in re- 
spect to its associations of the past. 

It has not the grandeur of the Rhone when 
the spring freshets from the Jura and the 
Swiss lakes have filled it to its banks; it has 
not the burning activity of the Seine as it bears 
its thousands of boat-loads of produce and 
merchandise to and from the Paris market; 
it has not the prettiness of the Thames, nor 
the legendary aspect of the Rhine; but in a 
way it combines something of the features of 
all, and has, in addition, a tone that is all its 



14 Old Touraine and the Loire Country 

own, as it sweeps along through its countless 
miles of ample curves, and holds within its 
embrace all that is best of mediaeval and Ee- 
naissance France, the period which built up 
the later monarchy and, who shall not say, the 
present prosperous republic. 

Throughout most of the river's course, one 
sees, stretching to the horizon, row upon row 
of staked vineyards with fruit and leaves in 
luxuriant abundance and of all rainbow col- 
ours. The peasant here, the worker in the 
vineyards, is a picturesque element. He is not 
particularly brilliant in colouring, but he is 
usually joyous, and he invariably lives in a 
well-kept and brilliantly environed habitation 
and has an air of content and prosperity amid 
the well-beloved treasures of his household. 

The Loire is essentially a river of other 
days. Truly, as Mr. James has said, ''It is 
the very model of a generous, beneficent 
stream ... a wide river which you may fol- 
low by a wide road is excellent company." 

The Frenchman himself is more flowery: 
^' C'est la plus nohle riviere de France. Son 
domaine est immense et magnifique." 

The Loire is the longest river in France, and 
the only one of the four great rivers whose 
basin or watershed lies wholly within French 



A General Survey 



15 





yN r^ORLE/iNAlsV-. 


(^<^^ t/^ r^ BERRY V-VT-V 1 






THE ANCIENT 


\auve. rgnu \ 


PEOVINCES OF THE 


/ \j^\ 


LOIEE VALLEY 


\J\jL^ I 


AND THEIE 


ijLANGUEDOC / 


CAPITALS 


X 


Bretagne .... 


Eennes 


Anjou 








Angers 


Touraine . 








Tours 


OrMannais 








Orleans 


Berry 








Bourges 


Nivernais 








Nevers 


Bourbonnais 








Moulins 


Lyonnais . 








Lyon 


Bourgogne 








Dijon 


Auvergne 








Clermont-Ferrand 


Languedoc 








Toulouse 



16 Old Touraine and the Loire Country- 
territory. It moreover traverses eleven prov- 
inces. It rises in a fissure of granite rock at 
the foot of the Gerbier-de-Jonc, a volcanic cone 
in the mountains of the Vivarais, a hundred 
kilometres or more south of Lyons. In three 
kilometres, approximately two miles, the little 
torrent drops a thousand feet, after receiving 
to its arms a tiny affluent coming from the 
Croix de Monteuse. 

For twelve kilometres the river twists and 
turns around the base of the Vivarais moun- 
tains, and finally enters a gorge between the 
rocks, and mingles with the waters of the little 
Lac d'Issarles, entering for the first time a 
flat lowland plain like that through which its 
course mostly runs. 

The monument-crowned pinnacles of Le Puy 
and the inverted bowl of Puy-de-D6me rise high 
above the plain and point the way to Roanne, 
where such activity as does actually take place 
upon the Loire begins. 

Navigation, classed officially as " ftottable," 
merely, has already begun at Vorey, just be- 
low Le Puy, but the traffic is insignificant. 

Meantime the streams coming from the di- 
rection of St. Etienne and Lyons have been 
added to the Loire, but they do not much 
increase its bulk. St. Galmier, the source dear 



A General Survey 17 

to patrons of tables d'hote on account of its 
palatable mineral water, which is about the 
only decent drinking-water one can buy at a 
reasonable price, lies but a short distance away 
to the right. 

At St. Eambert the plain of Forez is entered, 
and here the stream is enriched by numberless 
rivulets which make their way from various 
sources through a thickly wooded country. 

From Roanne onward, the Canal Lateral 
keeps company with the Loire to Chatillon, not 
far from Orleans. 

Before reaching Nevers, the Canal du Niver- 
nais branches off to the left and joins the Loire 
with the Yonne at Auxerre. Daudet tells of 
the life of the Canal du Nivernais, in ' ' La Belle 
Nivernaise," in a manner too convincingly 
graphic for any one else to attempt the task, 
in fiction or out of it. Like the Tartarin books, 
" La Belle Nivernaise " is distinctly local, and 
forms of itself an excellent guide to a little 
known and little visited region. 

At Nevers the topography changes, or 
rather, the characteristics of the life of the 
country round about change, for the topog- 
raphy, so far as its profile is concerned, re- 
mains much the same for three-fourths the 
length of this great river. Nevers, La Charite, 



18 Old Touraine and the Loire Country 

Sancerre, Grien, and Cosne follow in quick suc- 
cession, all reminders of a historic past as vivid 
as it was varied. 

From the heights of Sancerre one sees a 
wonderful history-making panorama before 
him. Caesar crossed the Loire at Gien, the 
Franks forded the river at La Charite, when 
they first went against Aquitaine, and Charles 
the Bald came sadly to grief on a certain 
occasion at Pouilly. 

It is here that the Loire rises to its greatest 
flood, and hundreds of times, so history tells, 
from 490 to 1866, the fickle river has caused 
a devastation so great and terrible that the 
memory of it is not yet dead. 

This hardly seems possible of this usually 
tranquil stream, and there have always been 
scoffers. 

Madame de Sevigne wrote in 1675 to M. de 
Coulanges (but in her case perhaps it was mere 
well-wishing), '^ La belle Loire, elle est un pen 
sujette a se deborder, mais elle en est plus 
douce." 

Ancient writers were wont to consider the 
inundations of the Loire as a punishment from 
Heaven, and even in later times the supersti- 
tion — if it was a superstition — still remained. 

In 1825, when thousands of charcoal-burners 




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J^ 




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-s; 




O 




!3 




^-4 


& 






^ 




<^ 


o 




^ 


?^ 






■?v 


•"Si 


s-i- 


^ 



^ 



A General Survey 19 

(charbonniers) were all but ruined, they peti- 
tioned the government for assistance. The 
official who had the matter in charge, and whose 
name — fortunately for his fame — does not 
appear to have been recorded, replied simply 
that the flood was a periodical condition of 
affairs which the Almighty brought about as 
occasion demanded, with good cause, and for 
this reason he refused all assistance. 

Important public works have done much to 
prevent repetitions of these inundations, but 
the danger still exists, and always, in a wet 
season, there are those dwellers along the riv- 
er's banks who fear the rising flood as they 
would the plague. 

Chatillon, with its towers ; Gien, a busy hive 
of industry, though with a historic past ; Sully ; 
and St. Benoit-sur-Loire, with its unique double 
transepted church; all pass in rapid review, 
and one enters the ancient capital of the Or- 
leannais quite ready for the new chapter which, 
in colouring, is to be so different from that 
devoted to the upper valley. 

From Orleans, south, one passes through a 
veritable wonderland of fascinating charms. 
Chateaux, monasteries, and great civic and 
ecclesiastical monuments pass quickly in turn. 

Then comes Touraine which all love, the 



20 Old Touraine and the Loire Country- 
river meantime having grown no more swift 
or ample, nor any more sluggish or attenuated. 
It is simply the same characteristic flow which 
one has known before. 

The landscape only is changing, while the 
fruits and flowers, and the trees and foliage 
are more luxuriant, and the great chateaux are 
more numerous, splendid, and imposing. 

Of his well-beloved Touraine, Balzac wrote: 
" Do not ask me why I love Touraine; I love 
it not merely as one loves the cradle of his 
birth, nor as one loves an oasis in a desert, 
but as an artist loves his art." 

Blois, with its bloody memories; Chaumont, 
splendid and retired; Chambord, magnificent, 
pompous, and bare; Amboise, with its great 
tower high above the river, follow in turn till 
the Loire makes its regal entree into Tours. 
'' What a spectacle it is," wrote Sterne in 
'' Tristram Shandy," '' for a traveller who 
journeys through Touraine at the time of the 
vintage. ' ' 

And then comes the final step which brings 
the traveller to where the limpid waters of the 
Loire mingle with the salty ocean, and what 
a triumphant meeting it is ! 

Most of the cities of the Loire possess but 
one bridge, but Tours has three, and, as be- 




Coifjes oj Amhoise and Orleans 



A Gi-eneral Survey 21 

comes a great provincial capital, sits enthroned 
upon the river-bank in mighty splendour. 

The feudal towers of the Chateau de Luynes 
are almost opposite, and Cinq-Mars, with its 
pagan ' ' pile ' ' and the ruins of its feudal castle 
high upon a hill, points the way down-stream 
like a mariner's beacon. Langeais follows, and 
the Indre, the Cher, and the Vienne, all ample 
and historic rivers, go to swell the flood which 
passes under the bridges of Saumur, Ancenis, 
and Fonts de Ce. 

From Tours to. the ocean, the Loire comes to 
its greatest amplitude, though even then, in 
spite of its breadth, it is, for the greater part 
of the year, impotent as to the functions of a 
great river. 

Below Angers the Loire receives its first 
great affluent coming from the country lying 
back of the right bank: the Maine itself is a 
considerable river. It rises far up in the 
Breton peninsula, and before it empties itself 
into the Loire, it has been aggrandized by 
three great tributaries, the Loir, the Sarthe, 
and the Mayenne. 

Here in this backwater of the Loire, as 
one might call it, is as wonderful a collection of 
natural beauties and historical chateaux as on 
the Loire itself. Chateaudun, Mayenne, and 



22 Old Touraine and the Loire Country 

Vendome are historic ground of superlative 
interest, and the great castle at Chateaudun 
is as magnificent in its way as any of the monu- 
ments of the Loire. Vendome has a Hotel de 
Ville which is an admirable relic of a feudal 
edifice, and the clocher of its church, which 
dominates many square leagues of country, 
is counted as one of the most perfectly dis- 
posed church spires in existence, as lovely, al- 
most, as Texier's masterwork at Chartres, or 
the needle-like fleches at Strasburg or Frei- 
burg in Breisgau. 

The Maine joins the Loire just below Angers, 
at a little village significantly called La Pointe. 
Below La Pointe are St. Georges-sur-Loire, 
and three chateaux de commerce which give 
their names to the three principal Angevin 
vineyards: Chateau Serrand, I'Epinay, and 
Chevigne. 

Vineyard after vineyard, and chateau after 
chateau follow rapidly, until one reaches the 
Ponts de Ce with their petite ville, — ail very 
delightful. Not so the bridge at Ancenis, where 
the flow of water is marked daily on a huge 
black and white scale. The bridge is quite the 
ugliest wire-rope affair to be seen on the Loire, 
and one is only too glad to leave it behind, 



A General Survey 



though it is with a real regret that he parts 
from Ancenis itself. 

Some years ago one could go from Angers 
to St. Nazaire by boat. It must have been a 
magnificent trip, extraordinarily calm and se- 
rene, amid an abundance of picturesque de- 
tails; old chateaux and bridges in strong con- 
trast to the prairies of Touraine and the Or- 
leannais. One embarked at the foot of the 
stupendously towered chateau of King Eene, 
and for a petite heure navigated the Maine 
in the midst of great chalands, fussy little 
remorqueurs and barques until La Pointe 
was reached, when the Loire was followed to 
Nantes and St. Nazaire. 

To-day this fine trip is denied one, the boats 
going only so far as La Pointe. 

Below Angers the Loire flows around and 
about a veritable archipelago of islands and 
islets, cultivated with all the luxuriance of a 
back-yard garden, and dotted with tiny ham- 
lets of folk who are supremely happy and con- 
tent with their lot. 

Some currents which run behind the islands 
are swift flowing and impetuous, while others 
are practically elongated lakes, as dead as 
those lomes which in certain places flank the 
Saone and the Rhone. 



24 Old Touraine and the Loire Country 

All these various branches are united as the 
Loire flows between the piers of the ungainly 
bridge of the Chemin-de-fer de Niort as it 
crosses the river at Chalonnes. 

Champtoce and Montjean follow, each with 
an individuality all its own. Here the com- 
merce takes on an increased activity, thanks 
to the great national waterway known as the 
'' Canal de Brest a Nantes." Here at the busy 
port of Montjean — which the Angevins still 
spell and pronounce Montejean — the Loire 
takes on a breadth and grandeur similar to the 
great rivers in the western part of America. 
Montjean is dominated by a fine ogival church, 
with a battery of arcs-boutants which are a 
joy in themselves. 

On the other bank, lying back of a great 
plain, which stretches away from the river it- 
self, is Champtoce, pleasantly situated on the 
flank of a hill and dominated by the ruins of a 
thirteenth-century chateau which belonged to 
the cruel Gilles de Retz, somewhat apocry- 
phally known to history as ' ' Barbe-bleu ' ' — 
not the Bluebeard of the nursery tale, who was 
of Eastern origin, but a sort of Occidental suc- 
cessor who was equally cruel and bloodthirsty 
in his attitude toward his whilom wives. 

From this point on one comes within the 



X . 



A General Survey 25 

sphere of influence of Nantes, and there is 
more or less of a suburban traffic on the rail- 
way, and the plodders cityward by road are 
more numerous than the mere vagabonds of 
the countryside. 

The peasant women whom one meets wear a 
curious bonnet, set on the head well to the fore, 
with wings at the side folded back quite like 
the pictures that one sees of the mediaeval 
dames of these parts, a survival indeed of the 
middle ages. 

The Loire becomes more and more animated 
and occasionally there is a great tow of boats 
like those that one sees continually passing on 
the lower Seine. Here the course of the Loire 
takes on a singular aspect. It is filled with 
long flat islands, sometimes in archipelagos, but 
often only a great flat prairie surrounded by a 
tranquil canal, wide and deep, and with little 
resemblance to the mistress Loire of a hundred 
or two kilometres up-stream. All these isles 
are in a high state of cultivation, though wholly 
worked with the hoe and the spade, both of 
them of a primitiveness that might have come 
down from Bible times; rare it is to see a 
horse or a harrow on these ^' bouquets of ver- 
dure surrounded by waves." 

Near Oudon is one of those monumental 



26 Old Touraine and the Loire Country 

follies which one comes across now and then 
in most foreign countries : a great edifice 
which serves no useful purpose, and which, 
were it not for certain redeeming features, 
would be a sorry thing indeed. The " Folie- 
Siffait," a citadel which perches itself high 
upon the summit of a hill, was — and is — an 
amusette built by a public-spirited man of 
Nantes in order that his workmen might have 
something to do in a time of a scarcity of work. 
It is a bizarre, incredible thing, but the motive 
which inspired its erection was most worthy, 
and the roadway running beneath, piercing its 
foundation walls, gives a theatrical effect 
which, in a way, makes it the picturesque rival 
of many a more famous Rhine castle. 

The river valley widens out here at Oudon, 
practically the frontier of Bretagne and Anjou. 
The railroad pierces the rock walls of the river 
with numerous tunnels along the right bank, 
and the Vendean country stretches far to the 
southward in long rolling hills quite unlike 
any of the characteristics of other parts of 
the valley. Finally, the vast plain of Mauves 
comes into sight, beautifully coloured with a 
white and iron-stained rocky background which 
is startlingly picturesque in its way, if not 



A General Survey 27 

wholly beautiful according to the majority of 
standards. 

Next comes what a Frenchman has called a 
'' tumultuous vision of Nantes." To-day the 
very ancient and historic city which grew up 
from the Portus Namnetum and the Condivic- 
num of the Romans is indeed a veritable 
tumult of chimneys, masts, and locomotives. 
But all this will not detract one jot from its 
reputation of being one of the most delightful 
of provincial capitals, and the smoke and ac- 
tivity of its port only tend to accentuate a 
note of colour that in the whole itinerary of the 
Loire has been but pale. 

Below Nantes the Loire estuary has turned 
the surrounding country into a little Holland, 
where fisherfolk and their boats, with sails of 
red and blue, form charming symphonies of 
pale colour. In the cabarets along its shores 
there is a strange medley of peasants, sea- 
farers, and fisher men and women. Not so cos- 
mopolitan a crew as one sees in the harbour- 
side cabarets at Marseilles, or even Le Havre, 
but sufficiently strange to be a fascination to 
one who has just come down from the head- 
waters. 

The '' Section Maritime," from Nantes to 
the sea, is a matter of some sixty kilometres. 



28 Old Touraine and the Loire Country 

Here the boats increase in number and size. 
They are known as gahares, chalands, and al- 
leges, and go down with the river-current and 
return on the incoming ebb, for here the river 
is tidal. 

Gray and green is the aspect at the Loire's 
source, and green and gray it still is, though 
of a decidedly different colour-value, at St. 
Nazaire, below Nantes, the real deep-water 
port of the Loire. 

By this time the river has amplified into a 
broad estuary which is lost in the incoming 
and outgoing tides of the Bay of Biscay. 

For nearly a thousand kilometres the Loire 
has wound its way gently and broadly through 
rocky escarpments, fertile plains, populous and 
luxurious towns, — all of it historic ground, 
— by stately chateaux and through vineyards 
and fruit orchards, with a placid grandeur. 

Now it becomes more or less prosaic and 
matter-of-fact, though in a way no less inter- 
esting, as it takes on some of the attributes 
of the outside world. 

This outline, then, approximates somewhat 
a portrait of the Loire. It is the result of 
many pilgrimages enthusiastically undertaken; 
a long contemplation of the charms of perhaps 



A General Survey 29 

the most beautiful river in France, from its 
source to its mouth, at all seasons of the year. 

The riches and curios of the cities along its 
banks have been contemplated with pleasure, 
intermingled with a memory of many stirring 
scenes of the past, but it is its chateaux that 
make it famous. 

The story of the chateaux has been told be^ 
fore in hundreds of volumes, but only a per- 
sonal view of them will bring home to one the 
manners and customs of one of the most luxu- 
rious periods of life in the France of other 
days. 



CHAPTER II. 



THE OKLEANISrAIS 



Op the many travelled English and Ameri- 
cans who go to Paris, how few visit the Loire 
valley with its glorious array of mediasval and 
Renaissance chateaux. No part of France, ex- 
cept Paris, is so accessible, and none is so com- 
fortably travelled, whether by road or by rail. 

At Orleans one is at the very gateway of 
this splendid, bountiful, region, the lower val- 
ley of the Loire. Here the river first takes 
on a complexion which previously it had 
lacked, for it is only when the Loire becomes 
the boundary-line between the north and the 
south that one comes to realize its full im- 
portance. 

The Orleannais, like many another province 
of mid-France, is a region where plenty awaits 
rich and poor alike. Not wholly given over to 
agriculture, nor yet wholly to manufacturing, 
it is without that restless activity of the 

30 



The Orleannais 31 

frankly industrial centres of the north. In 
spite of this, though, the Orleannais is not 
idle. 

Orleans is the obvious pointe de depart for 
all the wonderland of the Renaissance which 
is to follow, but itself and its immediate sur- 
roundings have not the importance for the 
visitor, in spite of the vivid historical chapters 
which have been written here in the past, that 
many another less famous city possesses. By 
this is meant that the existing monuments of 
history are by no means as numerous or splen- 
did here as one might suppose. Not that they 
are entirely lacking, but rather that they are 
of a different species altogether from that 
array of magnificently planned chateaux which 
line the banks of the Loire below. 

To one coming from the north the entrance 
to the Orleannais will be emphatically marked. 
It is the first experience of an atmosphere 
which, if not characteristically or climatically 
of the south, is at least reminiscent thereof, 
with a luminosity which the provinces of old 
France farther north entirely lack. 

As Lavedan, the Academicien, says : ' ' Here 
all focuses itself into one great picture, the 
combined romance of an epoch. Have you not 
been struck with a land where the clouds, the 



32 Old Touraine and the Loire Country 

atmosphere, the odour of the soil, and the 
breezes from afar, all comport, one with an- 
other, in true and just proportions'? " This is 
the Orleannais, a land where was witnessed the 
morning of the Valois, the full noon of Louis 
XIV., and the twilight of Louis XVI. 

The Orleannais formed a distinct part of 
mediseval France, as it did, ages before, of 
western Gaul. Of all the provinces through 
which the Loire flows, the Orleannais is as pro- 
lific as any of great names and greater events, 
and its historical monuments, if not so splendid 
as those in Touraine, are no less rare. 

Orleans itself contains many remarkable 
Gothic and Eenaissance constructions, and not 
far away is the ancient church of the old abbey 
of Notre Dame de Clery, one of the most his- 
toric and celebrated shrines in the time of the 
superstitious Louis XL; while innumerable 
mediaeval villes and ruined fortresses plenti- 
fully besprinkle the province. 

One characteristic possessed by the Orlean- 
nais differentiates it from the other outlying 
provinces of the old monarchy. The people 
and the manners and customs of this great and 
important duchy were allied, in nearly all 
things, with the interests and events of the 
capital itself, and so there was always a lack 



The Orleannais 33 

of individuality, which even to-day is notice- 
ably apparent in the Orleans capital. The 
shops, hotels, cafes, and the people themselves 
might well be one of the quartiers of Paris, so 
like are they in general aspect. 

The notable Parisian character of the in- 
habitants of Orleans, and the resemblance of 
the people of the surrounding country to those 
of the He of France, is due principally to the 
fact that the Orleannais was never so isolated 
as many others of the ancient provinces. It 
was virtually a neighbour of the capital, and its 
relations with it were intimate and numerous. 
Moreover, it was favoured by a great number 
of lines of communication by road and by 
water, so that its manners and customs became, 
more or less unconsciously, interpolations. 

The great event of the year in Orleans is the 
Fete de Jeanne d'Arc, which takes place in the 
month of May. Usually few English and 
American visitors are present, though why it 
is hard to reason out, for it takes place at 
quite the most delightful season in the year. 
Perhaps it is because Anglo-Saxons are 
ashamed of the part played by their ancestors 
in the shocking death of the maid of Domremy 
and Orleans. Innumerable are the relics and 
reminders of the " Maid " scattered through- 



34 Old Touraine and the Loire Country 

out the town, and the local booksellers have 
likewise innmnerable and authoritative ac- 
counts of the various episodes of her life, which 
saves the necessity of making further mention 
here. 

There are several statues of Jeanne d'Arc 
in the city, and they have given rise to the fol- 
lowing account written by Jules Lemaitre, the 
Academicien : 

'' I believe that the history of Jeanne d'Arc 
was the first that was ever told to me (before 
even the fairy-tales of Perrault). The ' Mort 
de Jeanne d'Arc,' of Casimir Delavigne, was 
the first fable that I learned, and the eques- 
trian statue of the ' Maid,' in the Place Mar- 
troi, at Orleans, is perhaps the oldest vision 
that my memory guards. 

" This statue of Jeanne d'Arc is absurd. 
She has a Grecian profile, and a charger which 
is not a war-horse but a race-horse. Never- 
theless to me it was noble and imposing. 

' ' In the courtyard of the Hotel de Ville is a 
petite pucelle, very gentle and pious, who holds 
against her heart her sword, after the manner 
of a crucifi:s:. At the end of the bridge across 
the Loire is another Jeanne d 'Arc, as the maid 
of war, surrounded by swirling draperies, as 
in a picture of Juvenet's. This to me tells the 



The Orleannais 35 

whole story of the reverence with which the 
martyred ' Maid ' is regarded in the city of 
Orleans by the Loire." 

One can appreciate all this, and to the full, 
for a Frenchman is a stern critic of art, even 
that of his own countrymen, and Jeanne d'Arc, 
along with some other celebrities, is one of 
those historical figures which have seldom had 
justice done them in sculptured or pictorial 
representations. The best, perhaps, is the pre- 
cocious Lepage's fine painting, now in America. 
What would not the French give for the return 
of this work of art? 

The Orleannais, with the He de France, 
formed the particular domain of the third race 
of French monarchs. From 1364 to 1498 the 
province was an appanage known as the Duche 
d 'Orleans, but it was united with the Crown 
by Louis XIL, and finally divided into the De- 
partments of Loir et Cher, Eure et Loir, and 
Loiret. 

Like the '* pardons " and '' benedictions " 
of Finistere and other parts of Bretagne, the 
peasants of the Loiret have a quaint custom 
which bespeaks a long handed-down supersti- 
tion. On the first Sunday of Lent they hie 
themselves to the fields with lighted fagots 
and chanting the following lines : 



36 Old Touraine and the Loire Country 

" Sortez, sortez d'ici mulcts ! 
Oil je vais vous bruler les crocs ! 
Quittez, quittez ces bl6s ; 
AUez, vous trouverez 
Dans la cave du cur6 
Plus a boire qu' a manger. 

Just how far the cure endorses these senti- 
ments, the author of this book does not know. 
The explanation of the rather extraordinary 
proceeding came from one of the participants, 
who, having played his part in the ceremony, 
dictated the above lines over sundry petits 
verres paid for by the writer. The day is not 
wound up, however, with an orgy of eating and 
drinking, as is sometimes the case in far-west- 
ern Brittany. The peasant of the Loiret sim- 
ply eats rather heavily of '' mi/' which is 
nothing more or less than oatmeal porridge, 
after which he goes to bed. 

The Loire rolls down through the Orleannais, 
from Chateauneuf-sur-Loire and Jargeau, 
and cuts the banks of sable, and the very shores 
themselves, into little capes and bays which 
are delightful in their eccentricity. Here cuts 
in the Canal d' Orleans, which makes possible 
the little traffic that goes on between the Seine 
and the Loire. 

A few kilometres away from the right bank 
of the Loire, in the heart of the Gatanais, is 



The Orleannais 37 

Lorris, the home of Guillaume de Lorris, the 
first author of the '^ Roman de la Rose." For 
this reason alone it should become a literary 
shrine of the very first rank, though, in spite 
of its claim, no one ever heard of a literary 
pilgrim making his way there. 

Lorris is simply a big, overgrown French 
market-town, which is delightful enough in its 
somnolence, but which lacks most of the attri- 
butes which tourists in general seem to demand. 

At Lorris a most momentous treaty was 
signed, known as the '' Faix de Lorris," 
wherein was assured to the posterity of St. 
Louis the heritage of the Comte de Toulouse, 
another of those periodical territorial ag- 
grandizements which ultimately welded the 
French nation into the whole that it is to-day. 

From the juncture of the Canal d' Orleans 
with the Loire one sees shining in the brilliant 
sunlight the roof-tops of Orleans, the Aureli- 
anum of the Romans, its hybrid cathedral over- 
topping all else. It was Victor Hugo who said 
of this cathedral : ' ' This odious church, which 
from afar holds so much of promise, and which 
near by has none," and Hugo undoubtedly 
spoke the truth. 

Orleans is an old city and a cite neuve. 
"Where the river laps its quays, it is old but 



38 Old Touraine and the Loire Country 

commonplace; back from the river is a strata 
which is really old, fine Gothic house-fronts 
and old leaning walls ; while still farther from 
the river, as one approaches the railway sta- 
tion, it is strictly modern, with all the devices 
and appliances of the newest of the new. 

The Orleans of history lies riverwards, — 
the Orleans where the heart of France pulsed 
itself again into life in the tragic days which 
were glorified by " the Maid." 

'' The countryside of the Orleannais has the 
monotony of a desert," said an English trav- 
eller some generations ago. He was wrong. 
To do him justice, however, or to do his ob- 
servations justice, he meant, probably, that, 
save the river-bottom of the Loire, the great 
plain which begins with La Beauce and ends 
with the Sologne has a comparatively uninter- 
esting topography. This is true ; but it is not a 
desert. La Beauce is the best grain-growing 
region in all France, and the Sologne is now a 
reclaimed land whose sandy soil has proved 
admirably adapted to an unusually abundant 
growth of the vine. So much for this old-time 
point of view, which to-day has changed con- 
siderably. 

The Orleannais is one of the most populous 
and progressive sections of all France, and its 



The Orleannais 



39 



inhabitants, per square kilometre, are con- 
stantly increasing in numbers, which is more 
than can be said of every departement. There 
are multitudes of tiny villages, and one is 



'^iSSi&mmi 




scarcely ever out of sight and sound of a hab- 
itation. 

In the great forest, just to the west of Or- 
leans, are two small villages, each a celebrated 
battle-ground, and a place of a patriotic pil- 



40 Old Touraine and the Loire Country 

grimage on the eighth and ninth of November 
of each year. They are Coulmiers and Bacon, 
and here some fugitives from Metz and Sedan, 
with some young troops exposed to fire for the 
first time, engaged with the Prussians (in 
1870) who had occupied Orleans since mid- 
October. There is the usual conventional ' ' sol- 
diers ' monument," — with considerably more 
art about it than is usually seen in America, 
— before which Frenchmen seemingly never 
cease to worship. 

This same Foret d' Orleans, one of those wild- 
woods which so plentifully besprinkle France, 
has a sad and doleful memory in the tradi- 
tions of the druidical inhabitants of a former 
day. Their practices here did not differ 
greatly from those of their brethren elsewhere, 
but local history is full of references to atroc- 
ities so bloodthirsty that it is difficult to be- 
lieve that they were ever perpetrated under 
the guise of religion. 

Surrounding the forest are many villages 
and hamlets, war-stricken all in the dark days 
of seventy-one, when the Prussians were over- 
running the land. 

Of all the cities of the Loire, Orleans, Blois, 
Tours, Angers, and Nantes alone show any 
spirit of modern progressiveness or of likeness 



The Orleannais 41 

to the capital. The rest, to all appearances, 
are dead, or at least sleeping in their pasts. 
But they are charming and restful spots for 
all that, where in melancholy silence sit the old 
men, while the younger folk, including the very 
children, are all at work in the neighbouring 
vineyards or in the wheat-fields of La Beauce. 

Meung-sur-Loire and Beaugency sleep on the 
river-bank, their proud monuments rising high 
in the background, — the massive tower of 
Caesar and a quartette of church spires. Just 
below Orleans is the juncture of the Loiret and 
the Loire at St. Mesmin, while only a few kilo- 
metres away is Clery, famed for its associa- 
tions of Louis XL 

The Loiret is not a very ample river, and is 
classed by the Minister of Public Works as nav- 
igable for but four kilometres of its length. 
This, better than anything else, should define 
its relative importance among the great water- 
ways of France. Navigation, as it is known 
elsewhere, is practically non-existent. 

The course of the Loiret is perhaps twelve 
kilometres all told, but it has given its name 
to a great French departement, though it is 
doubtless the shortest of all the rivers of 
France thus honoured. 

It first comes to light in the dainty park of 



42 Old Touraine and the Loire Country 

the Chateau de la Source, where there are two 
distinct sources. The first forras a small cir- 
cular basin, known as the " Bouillon," which 
leads into another semicircular basin called the 
" Bassin du Miroir," from the fact that it 
reflects the fagade of the chateau in its placid 
surface. Of course, this is all very artificial 
and theatrical, but it is a pretty conceit never- 
theless. The other source, known as the 
*' Grande Source," joins the rivulet some hun- 
dreds of yards below the ' ' Bassin du Miroir. ' ' 

The Chateau de la Source is a seventeenth- 
century edifice, of no great architectural beauty 
in itself, but sufficiently sylvan in its surround- 
ings to give it rank as one of the notable places 
of pilgrimage for tourists who, said a cynical 
French writer, ' ' take the chateaux of the Loire 
tour a tour as they do the morgue, the Moulin 
Eouge, and the sewers of Paris." 

In the early days the chateau belonged to the 
Cardinal Brigonnet, and it was here that Bol- 
ingbroke, after having been stripped of his 
titles in England, went into retirement in 1720. 
In 1722 he received Voltaire, who read him his 
*' Henriade." 

In 1815 the invading Prince Eckmiihl, with 
his staff, installed himself in the chateau, when, 
after Waterloo, the Prussian and French ar- 



jjjoire Country 



a Source, where there are two 

s. The first fornis a small cir- 

known as the '^ Bouillon," which 

' other semicircular basin called the 

da Miroir," from the fact that it 

•0 facade of the chateau in its placid 

Of course, this is all very artificial 

:teatT*icaL but it is a pretty conceit never- 

ther source, known as the 

J side bonrce," joins the rivulet some hun- 

' of yards below the '' Bassin du Miroir." 

' Chateau de la Source is a seventeenth- 

; y edifice, of no great architectural beauty 

if, but sufficierjtls,^ylvan in its surround- 

:':ve it rank r o notable places 

■•:'i£fp- for tui'. , i*aid a cynical 

take the chateaux of the Loire 

lo the morgue, the Moulin 

Cnrdi: , .oimet, and it was here that Bol- 

jfUibr( kv after having been stripped of his 

n England, went into retirement in 1720. 

2 he received Voltaire, who read him his 

•iade." 

^^15 the invading Prince Eckmiihl, with 
ristalled himself in the chateau, when, 
torloo, the Prussian and French ar- 



The Orleannais 43 

mies were separated only by a barrier placed 
midway on the bridge at Orleans. It was here 
also that the Prussian army was disbanded, on 
the agreement of the council held at Anger- 
ville, near Orleans. 

There are three other chateaux on the bor- 
ders of the Loiret, which are of more than 
ordinary interest, so far as great country 
houses and their surroundings go, though their 
histories are not very striking, with perhaps 
the exception of the Chateau de la Fontaine, 
which has a remarkable garden, laid out by 
Lenotre, the designer of the parks at Ver- 
sailles. 

Leaving Orleans by the right bank of the 
Loire, one first comes to La Chapelle-St. Mes- 
min. La Chapelle has a church dating from 
the eleventh century and a chateau which is 
to-day the maison de campagne of the Bishop 
of Orleans, On the opposite bank was the 
Abbaye de Micy, founded by Clovis at the time 
of his conversion. A stone cross, only, marks 
the site to-day. 

St. Ay follows next, and is usually set down 
in the guide-books as '' celebrated for good 
wines." This is not to be denied for a moment, 
and it is curious to note that the city bears the 
same name as the famous town in the cham- 



44 Old Touraine and the Loire Country 

pagne district, celebrated also for good wine, 
though of a different kind. The name of the 
Orleannais Ay is gained from a hermitage 
founded here by a holy man, who died in the 
sixth century. His tomb was discovered in 
1860, under the choir of the church, which 
makes it a place of pilgrimage of no little local 
importance. 

At Meung-sur-Loire one should cross the 
river to Clery, five kilometres off, seldom if 
ever visited by casual travellers. But why? 
Simply because it is overlooked in that uni- 
versal haste shown by most travellers — who 
are not students of art or architecture, or deep 
lovers of history — in making their way to 
more popular shrines. One will not regret the 
time taken to visit Clery, which shared with 
Our Lady of Embrun the devotions of Louis XL 

Clery 's three thousand pastoral inhabitants 
of to-day would never give it distinction, and 
it is only the Maison de Louis XL and the 
Basilique de Notre Dame which makes it worth 
while, but this is enough. 

In *' Quentin Durward " one reads of the 
time when the superstitious Louis was held in 
captivity by the Burgundian, Charles the Bold, 
and of how the French king made his devotions 
before the little image, worn in his hat, of the 



The Orleannais 45 

Virgin of Clery; " the grossness of his super- 
stition, none the less than his fickleness, lead- 
ing him to believe Our Lady of Clery to be quite 
a different person from the other object of his 
devotion, the Madonna of Embrun, a tiny 
mountain village in southwestern France. 

' ' ' Sweet Lady of Clery, ' he exclaimed, clasp- 
ing his hands and beating his breast as he 
spoke, ' Blessed Mother of Mercy! thou who 
art omnipotent with omnipotence, have compas- 
sion with me, a sinner ! It is true I have some- 
times neglected you for thy blessed sister of 
Embrun; but I am a king, my power is great, 
my wealth boundless; and were it otherwise, 
I would double my gdbelle on my subjects 
rather than not pay my debts to you both. ' ' ' 

Louis endowed the church at Clery, and the 
edifice was built in the fine flamboyant style 
of the period, just previous to his death, which 
De Commines gives as '^ ?e samedy penuUieme 
jour d'Aoust, Van mil quatre cens quatre- 
vingtz et trois, a huit heures du soir." 

Louis XI. was buried here, and the chief 
'' sight " is of course his tomb, beside which 
is a flagstone which covers the heart of 
Charles VIII. The Chapelle St. Jacques, 
within the church, is ornamented by a series 
of charming sculptures, and the Chapelle des 



46 Old Touraine and the Loire Country 

Dunois-Longueville holds the remains of the 
famous ally of Jeanne d'Arc and members of 
his family. 

In the choir is the massive oaken statue of 
Our Lady of Clery (thirteenth century) ; the 
very one before which Louis made his vows. 
There is some old glass in the choir and a 
series of sculptured stalls, which would make 
famous a more visited and better known shrine. 
There is a fine sculptured stone portal to the 
sacristy, and within there are some magnifi- 
cent old armoires, and also two chasubles, which 
saw service in some great church, perhaps here, 
in the times of Louis himself. 

The '' Maison de Louis XL," near the 
church, is a house of brick, restored in 1651, 
and now — or until a very recent date — occu- 
pied by a community of nuns. In the Grande 
Eue is another '' Maison de Louis XL; " at 
least it has Ms cipher on the painted ceiling. 
It is now occupied by the Hotel de la Belle 
Image. Those who like to dine and sleep where 
have also dined and slept royal heads will ap- 
preciate putting up at this hostelry. 

Meung-sur-Loire was the birthplace of Jehan 
Clopinel, better known as Jean de Meung, who 
continued Guillaume de Lorris 's ' ' Roman de la 
Rose," the most famous bit of verse produced 




g 



The Orleannais 47 



by the trouveres of the thirteenth century. 
The voice of the troubadour was soon after 
hushed for ever, but that thirteenth-century 
masterwork — though by two hands and the 
respective portions unequal in merit — lives 
for ever as the greatest of its kind. In memory 
of the author, Meung has its Eue Jehan de 
Meung, for want of a more effective or appeal- 
ing monument. 

Dumas opens the history of '^ Les Trois 
Mousquetaires " with the following brilliantly 
romantic lines anent Meung: " Le premier lundi 
du mois d'Avril, 1625, le hourg de Meung, ou 
naquit I'auteur du ' Roman de la Rose/ " 
(One of the authors, he should have said, but 
here is where Dumas nodded, as he frequently 
did.) 

Continuing, one reads : ' ' The town was in 
a veritable uproar. It was as if the Huguenots 
were up in arms and the drama of a second 
Eochelle was being enacted." Eeally the de- 
scription is too brilliant and entrancing to be 
repeated here, and if any one has forgotten 
his Dumas to the extent that he has forgotten 
D'Artagnan's introduction to the hostelry of 
the *' Franc Meunier," he is respectfully re- 
ferred back to that perennially delightful ro- 
mance. 



48 Old Touraine and the Loire Country 

Meung was once a Roman fortress, known 
as Maudunum, and in the eleventh century St. 
Liphard founded a monastery here. 

In the fifteenth century Meung was the 
prison of Frangois Villon. Poor vagabond as 
he was then, it has become the fashion to laud 
both the personality and the poesy of Maitre 
Frangois Villon. 

By the orders of Thibaut d'Aussigny, Bishop 
of Orleans, Villon was confined in a strong 
tower attached to the side of the docker of the 
parish church of St. Liphard, and which ad- 
joined the chateau de plaisance belonging to 
the bishop. Primarily this imprisonment was 
due to a robbery in which the poet had been 
concerned at Orleans. He spent the whole of 
the summer in this dungeon, which was over- 
run with rats, and into which he had to be low- 
ered by ropes. As his food consisted of bread 
and water only, his sufferings at this time were 
probably greater than at any other period in 
his life. Here the burglar-poet remained until 
October, 1461, when Louis XI. visited Meung, 
and, to mark the occasion, ordered the release 
of all prisoners. For this delivery, Villon, ac- 
cording to the accounts of his life, appears to 
have been genuinely grateful to the king. 

At Beaugency, seven kilometres from Meung, 



The Orleannais 49 

one comes upon an architectural and historical 
treat which is unexpected. 

In the eleventh century Beaugency was a fief 
of the bishopric of Amiens, and its once strong 
chateau was occupied by the Barons de Landry, 
the last of whom died, without children, in the 
thirteenth century. Philippe-le-Bel bought the 
fief and united it with the Comte de Blois. It 
was made an independent comte of itself in 
1569, and in 1663 became definitely an appanage 
of Orleans. The Prince de Galles took Beau- 
gency in 1359, the Gascons in 1361, Duguesclin 
in 1370 and again in 1417 ; in 1421 and in 1428 
it was taken by the English, from whom it was 
delivered by Jeanne d'Arc in 1429. Internal 
wars and warfares continued for another hun- 
dred and fifty years, finally culminating in one 
of the grossest scenes which had been enacted 
within its walls, — the bloody revenge against 
the Protestants, encouraged doubtless by the 
affair of St. Bartholomew's night at Paris. 

The ancient square donjon of the eleventh 
century, known as the Tour de Cesar, still 
looms high above the town. It must be one of 
the hugest keeps in all France. The old cha- 
teau of the Dunois is now a charitable insti- 
tution, but reflects, in a way, the splendour of 
its fourteenth-century inception, and its Salle 



50 Old Touraine and the Loire Country 

de Jeanne d'Arc, with its great chimneypiece, 
is worthy to rank with the best of its kind along 
the Loire. The spiral staircase, of which the 
Loire builders were so fond, is admirable here, 
and dates from 1530. 

The Hotel de Ville of Beaugency is a charm- 
ing edifice of the very best of Eenaissance, 
which many more pretentious structures of the 
period are not. It dates from 1526, and was 
entirely restored — not, however, to its detri- 
ment, as frequently happens — in the last years 
of the nineteenth century. Its charm, never- 
theless, lies mostly in its exterior, for little re- 
mains of value within except a remarkable 
series of old embroideries taken from the choir 
of the old abbey of Beaugency. 

The Eglise de Notre Dame is a Romanesque 
structure with Grothic interpolations. It is not 
bad in its way, but decidedly is not remarkable 
as mediaeval churches go. 

The old streets of Beaugency contain a daz- 
zling array of old houses in wood and stone, 
and in the Rue des Templiers is a rare exam- 
ple of Romanesque civil architecture; at least 
the type is rare enough in the Orleannais, 
though more frequently seen in the south of 
France. The Tour St. Firmin dates from 1530, 
and is all that remains of a church which stood 




Beaugency 



The Orleannais 51 

here up to revolutionary times. The square 
ruined towers known as the Porte Tavers are 
relics of the city's old walls and gates, and are 
all that are left to mark the ancient enclosure. 

The Tour du Diable and the house of the 
ruling abbot remain to suggest the power and 
magnificence of the great abbey which was 
built here in the tenth century. In 1567 it was 
burned, and later restored, but beyond the two 
features just mentioned there is nothing to 
indicate its former uses, the remaining struc- 
tures having passed into private hands and 
being devoted to secular uses. 

The old bridge which crosses the Loire at 
this point is most curious, and dates from vari- 
ous epochs. It is 440 metres in length, and is 
composed of twenty-six arches, one of which 
dates from the fourteenth century, when 
bridge-building was really an art. Eight of 
the present-day arches are of wood, and on 
the second is a monolith surmounted by a figure 
of Christ in bronze, replacing a former chapel 
to St. Jacques. A chapel on a bridge is not 
a unique arrangement, but few exist to-day, 
one of the most famous being, perhaps, that 
on the ruined bridge of St. Benezet at Avignon. 

Altogether, Beaugency, as it sleeps its life 
away after the strenuous days of the middle 



52 Old Touraine and the Loire Country 

ages, is more lovable by far than a great me- 
tropolis. 

The traveller is well repaid who makes a 
stop at Beaugency a part of a three days' gen- 
tle ramble among the usually neglected towns 
and villages of the Orleannais and the Blaisois, 
instead of rushing through to Blois by express- 
train, which is what one usually does. 

Southward one's route lies through pleasant 
vineyards, on one side the Sologne, and on the 
other the Coteau de Guignes, which latter ranks 
as quite the best among the vine-growing dis- 
tricts of the Orleannais. 

Near Tavers is a natural curiosity in the 
shape of the * ' Fontaine des Sables Mouvants, ' ' 
where the sands of a tiny spring boil and bub- 
ble like a miniature geyser. 

Mer, another small town, follows, twelve kilo- 
metres farther on. Like Beaugency it is a som- 
nolent bourg, and the life of the peasant folk 
round about, who go to market on one day at 
Beaugency and on another at Blois, and occa- 
sionally as far away as Orleans, is much the 
same as it was a century ago. 

There is a Boulevard de la Gare and a 
Grande Rue at Mer, the latter leading to a fine 
Gothic church with a fifteenth-century tower, 
which is admirable in every way, and forms 



The Orleannais 53 

a beacon by land for many miles around. The 
primitive church at Mer dates from the elev- 
enth century, the side walls, however, being all 
that remain of that period. There is a sculp- 
tured pulpit of the seventeenth century, and a 
great painting, which looks ancient and is cer- 
tainly a masterful work of art, representing 
an ** Adoration of the Magi." 

When all is said and done, it is its irresistible 
and inexpressible charm which makes Mer well- 
beloved, rather than any great wealth of artis- 
tic atmosphere of any nature. 

Away to the south, across the Loire to 
Muides, runs the route to Chambord, through 
the Sologne, where immediately the whole as- 
pect of life changes from that on the borders 
of the rich grain-lands of the Orleannais and 
La Beauce. 

All the way from Beaugency to Blois the 
Loire threads its way through a lovely country, 
whose rolling slopes, back from the river, are 
surmounted here and there by windmills, a not 
very frequent adjunct to the landscape of 
France, except in the north. 

Near Mer is Menars, with its eighteenth-cen- 
tury chateau of La Pompadour; Suevres, the 
site of an ancient Eoman city; the lowlands 
lying before Chambord ; St. Die ; Montlivault ; 



64 Old Touraine and the Loire Country 

St. Claude, and a score of little villages which 
are entrancing in their old-world aspect even 
in these days of progress. This completes the 
panorama to Blois which, with the Blaisois, 
forms the borderland between the Orleannais 
and Touraine. 

Before reaching Blois, Menars, at any rate, 
commands attention. It fronts upon the Loire, 
but is practically upon the northern border of 
the Foret de Blois, hence properly belongs to 
the Blaisois. Menars was made a rendezvous 
for the chase by the wily and pleasure-loving 
La Pompadour, who quartered herself at the 
chateau, which afterward passed to her brother, 
De Marigny. 

Before the Eevolution, Menars was the seat 
of a marquisate, of which the land was bought 
by Louis XV. for his famous, or infamous, 
maitresse. The property has frequently 
changed hands since that day, but its gardens 
and terraces, descending toward the river- 
bank, mark it as one of those coquette estab- 
lishments, with which France was dotted in 
the eighteenth century. 

These establishments possessed enough of 
luxurious appointments to be classed as fit- 
ting for the butterflies of the time, but in no 
way, so far as the architectural design or the 



The Orleannais 55 

artistic details were concerned, were any of 
them worthy to be classed with the great do- 
mestic chateaux of the early years of the 
Renaissance. 



CHAPTER III. 

THE BLAISOIS AND THE SOLOGNE 

The Blesois or Blaisois was the ancient name 
given to the petit pays which made a part of 
the government of the Orleannais. It was, and 
is, the borderland between the Orleannais and 
Touraine, and, with its capital, Blois, the city 
of counts, was a powerful territory in its own 
right, in spite of the allegiance which it owed 
to the Crown. Twenty leagues in length by 
thirteen in width, it was bounded on the north 
by the Dunois and the Orleannais, on the east 
by Berry, on the south by Touraine, and on 
the west by Touraine and the Vendomois. 

Blois, its capital, was famed ever in the 
annals of the middle ages, and to-day no city 
in the Loire valley possesses more sentimental 
interest for the traveller than does Blois. 

To the eastward lay the sands of the Sologne, 
and southward the ample and fruitful Tou- 
raine, hence Blois 's position was one of su- 

56 



The Blaisois and the Sologne 57 

preme importance, and there is no wonder that 
it proved to be the scene of so many momentous 
events of history. 

The present day Department of the Loir 
et Cher was carved out from the Blaisois, the 
Vendomois, and the Orleannais. The Baisois 
was, in olden time, one of the most important 
of the petits gouvernements of all the kingdom, 
and gave to Blois a line of counts who rivalled 
in power and wealth the churchmen of Tours 
and the dukes of Brittany. G'regory of Tours 
is the first historian who makes mention of 
the ancient Pagus Blensensis. 

One must not tell the citizen of Blois that it 
is at Tours that one hears the best French 
spoken. Everybody knows this, but the inhab- 
itant of the Blaisois will not admit it, and, in 
truth, to the stranger there is not much appar- 
ent difference. Throughout this whole region 
he understands and makes himself understood 
with much more facility than in any other part 
of France. 

For one thing, not usually recalled, Blois 
should be revered and glorified. It was the 
native place of Lenoir, who invented the instru- 
ment which made possible the definite deter- 
mination of the metric system of measurement. 

One reads in Bernier's '' Histoire de Blois " 



58 Old Touraine and the Loire Country 



that the inhabitants are '' honest, gallant, and 
polite in conversation, and of a delicate and 
diffident temperament." This was written 
nearly a century ago, but there is no excuse 
for one's changing the opinion to-day unless, 
as was the misfortune of the writer, he runs 

up against an unusu- 
ally importunate ven- 
der of post-cards or an 
aggressive gargon de 
cafe. 

Blois, among all the 
cities of the Loire, is 
the favourite with the 
tourist. Why this 
should be is an en- 
igma. It is overbur- 
dened, at times, with droves of tourists, and 
this in itself is a detraction in the eyes of 
many. 

Perhaps it is because here one first meets 
a great chateau of state; and certainly the 
Chateau de Blois lives in one's memory more 
than any other chateau in France. 

Much has been written of Blois, its counts, 
its chateau, and its many and famous hotels 
of the nobility, by writers of all opinions and 
abilities, from those old chroniclers who wrote 




The Blaisois and the Sologne 59 

of the plots and intrigues of other days to those 
critics of art and architecture who have discov- 
ered — or think they have discovered — ^that 
Da Vinci designed the famous spiral stair- 
case. 

From this one may well gather that Blois is 
the foremost chateau of all the Loire in popu- 
larity and theatrical effect. Truly this is so, 
but it is by no manner of means the most lov- 
able; indeed, it is the least lovable of all that 
great galaxy which begins at Blois and ends 
at Nantes. It is a show-place and not much 
more, and partakes in every form and feature 
— as one sees it to-day — of the attributes of 
a museum, and such it really is. All of its 
former gorgeousness is still there, and all the 
banalities of the later period when Gaston of 
Orleans built his ugly wing, for the '' person- 
ally conducted " to marvel at, and honeymoon 
couples to envy. The French are quite fond 
of visiting this shrine themselves, but usually 
it is the- young people and their mammas, and 
detached couples of American and English 
birth that one most sees strolling about the 
courts and apartments were formerly lords 
and ladies and cavaliers moved and plotted. 

The great chateau of the Counts of Blois is 
built upon an inclined rock which rises above 



60 Old Touraine and the Loire Country 

the roof-tops of the lower town quite in fairy- 
book fashion, — 

"... Batie en pierre et d'ardoise couverte, 
Blanche et carr^e an bas de la colline verte." 

Commonly referred to as the Chateau de 
Blois, it is really composed of four separate 
and distinct foundations; the original chateau 




Signature of Francois Premier 

of the counts ; the later addition of Louis XII. ; 
the palace of Frangois I., and the most unsym- 
pathetically and dismally disposed pavilion of 
Gaston of Orleans. 

The artistic qualities of the greater part of 
the distinct edifices which go to make up the 
chateau as it stands to-day are superb, with 
the exception of that great wing of Gaston's, 
before mentioned, which is as cold and unfeel- 
ing as the overrated palace at Versailles. 



The Blaisois and the Sologne 61 

The Comtes de Chatillon built that portion 
just to the right of the present entrance; 
Louis XII., the edifice through which one enters 
the inner court and which extends far to the 
left, including also the chapel immediately to 
the rear ; while Frangois Premier, who here as 
elsewhere let his unbounded Italian proclivi- 
ties have full sway, built the extended wing to 
the left of the inner court and fronting on the 
present Place du Chateau, formerly the Place 
Royale. 

Immediately to the left, in the Basse Cour 
de Chateau, are the Hotel d'Amboise, the Hotel 
d':fipernon, and farther away, in the Rue St. 
Honore, the Hotel Sardini, the Hotel d'Alluye, 
and a score of others belonging to the nobility 
of other days ; all of them the scenes of many 
stirring and gallant events in Renaissance 
times. 

This is hardly the place for a discussion of 
the merits or demerits of any particular artis- 
tic style, but the frequently repeated expres- 
sion of Buff on 's '^ Le style, c'est I'homme " 
may well be paraphrased into '^ L'art, c'est 
I'epoque." In fact one finds at all times im- 
printed upon the architectural style of any 
period the current mood bred of some historical 
event or a passing fancy. 



62 Old Touraine and the Loire Country 

At Blois this is particularly noticeable. As 
an architectural monument the chateau is a 
picturesque assemblage of edifices belonging 
to many different epochs, and, as such, shows, 
as well as any other document of contemporary 
times, the varying ambitions and emotions of 
its builders, from the rude and rough manners 
of the earliest of feudal times through the 







<cyo-riRbV>!!! 



highly refined Eenaissance details of the imag- 
inative brain of Frangois, down to the base con- 
coction of the elder Mansart, produced at the 
commands of Gaston of Orleans. 

The whole gamut, from the gay and winsome 
to the sad and dismal, is found here. 

The escutcheons of the various occupants 
are plainly in evidence, — the swan pierced by 
an arrow of the first Counts of Blois; the 



The Blaisois and the Sologne 63 

ermine of Anne de Bretagne; the porcupine 
of the Dues d 'Orleans, and the salamander of 
FranQois Premier. 

In the earliest structure were to be seen all 
the attributes of a feudal fortress, towers and 
walls pierced with narrow loopholes, and damp, 
dark dungeons hidden away in the thick walls. 
Then came a structure which was less of a 
fortress and more habitable, but still a strong- 
hold, though having ample and decorative door- 
ways and windows, with curious sculptures and 
rich framings. Then the pompous Renaissance 
with escaliers and balcons a jour, balustrades 
crowning the walls, arabesques enriching the 
pilasters and walls, and elaborate cornices here, 
there, and everywhere, — all bespeaking the 
gallantry and taste of the roi-chevalier. Fi- 
nally came the cold, classic features of the 
period of the brother of Louis XIII., decidedly 
the worst and most unlivable and unlovely 
architecture which France has ever produced. 
All these features are plain in the general 
scheme of the Chateau de Blois to-day, and 
doubtless it is this that makes the appeal; too 
much loveliness, as at Chenonceaux or Azay- 
le-Rideau, staggers the modern mortal by the 
sheer impossibility of its modern attainment. 

In plan the Chateau de Blois forms an irreg- 



64 Old Touraine and the Loire Country 

ular square situated at the apex of a promon- 
tory high above the surface of the Loire, and 
practically behind the town itself. The build- 
ing has a most picturesque aspect, and, to those 
who know, gives practically a history of the 
chateau architecture of the time. Abandoned, 
mutilated, and dishonoured from time to time, 
the structure gradually took on new forms until 
the thick walls underlying the apartment 
known to-day as the Salle des Etats — prob- 
ably the most ancient portion of all — were 
overshadowed by the great richness of the fif- 
teenth and sixteenth centuries. One early frag- 
ment was entirely enveloped in the structure 
which was built by Frangois Premier, the an- 
cient Tour de Chateau Regnault, or De Mou- 
lins, or Des Oubliettes, as it was variously 
known, and from the outside this is no longer 
visible. 

From the platform one sees a magnificent 
panorama of the city and the far-reaching 
Loire, which unrolls itself southward and 
northward for many leagues, its banks covered 
by rich vineyards and crowned by thick forests. 

The building of Louis XII. presents its brick- 
faced exterior in black and red lozenge shapes, 
with sculptured window-frames, squarely upon 
the little tree-bordered place of to-day, which 



The Blaisois and the Sologne 65 

in other times formed a part of that magnifi- 
cent terrace which looked down upon the roof 
of the Eglise St. Nicolas, and the Jesuit Church 
of the Immaculate Conception, and the silvery 
belt of the Loire itself. 

On the west faQade of this vast conglomerate 




sgi j^Riiig oyi Xjovi0 :5Cii ~~^ 




structure one sees the effigy of the porcupine, 
that weird symbol adopted by the family of 
Orleans. 

The choice of this ungainly animal — in spite 
of which it is most decorative in outline — 
was due to the first Louis, who was Due d 'Or- 
leans. In the year 1393 Louis founded the 



66 Old Touraine and the Loire Country 

order of the porcupine, in honour of the birth 
of Charles, his eldest son, who was born to him 
by Valentine de Milan. The legend which ac- 
companied the adoption of the symbol — 
though often enough it was missing in the 
sculptured representations — was Cominus et 
eminus, which had its origin in the be- 
lief that the porcupine could defend himself 
in a near attack, but that when he himself 
attacked, he fought from afar by launching 
forth his spines. 

Naturalists will tell you that the porcupine 
does no such thing; but in those days it was 
evidently believed that he did, and in many, if 
not all, of the sculptured effigies that one sees 
of the beast there is a halo of detached spines 
forming a background as if they were really 
launching themselves forth in mid-air. 

Above this central doorway, or entrance to 
the courtyard, is a niche in which is a modern 
equestrian statue of Louis XII., replacing a 
more ancient one destroyed at the Revolution. 
This old statue, it is claimed, was an admira- 
ble work of art in its day, and the present 
statue is thought to be a replica of it. 

It originally bore the following inscription 
— a verse written by Fausto Andrelini, the 
king's favourite poet. 







Central Doonvay, Chateau de Blots 



The Blaisois and the Sologne 67 

" Hie ubi natus erat dextro Lodoicus Olympo, 
Sumpsit honorata Regia sceptra manu ; 
Felix quEe taati fulfit lux nuntia Regis ; 
Gallia non alio Principe digna fuit. 

FAUSTUS 1498." 

According to an old French description this 
old statue was: '' tres beau et tres agreable 
ainsy que tous ses portraits Vont represents, 
comme celui qui est au grand portail de 
Bloys:' 

Above rises a balustrade with fantastic gar- 
goyles with the pinnacles and fleurons of the 
window gables all very ornate, the whole 
topped off with a roofing of slate. 

Blois, in its general aspect, is fascinating; 
but it is not sympathetic, and this is not sur- 
prising when one remembers men and women 
who worked their deeds of bloody daring 
within its walls. 

The murders and other acts of violence and 
treason which took place here are interesting 
enough, but one cannot but feel, when he views 
the chimneypiece before which the Due de 
Guise was standing when called to his death 
in the royal closet, that the men of whom the 
bloody tales of Blois are told quite deserved 
their fates. 

One comes away with the impression of it 



68 Old Touraine and the Loire Country 

all stamped only upon the mind, not graven 
upon the heart. Political intrigue to-day, if 
quite as vulgar, is less sordid. Bigotry and 
ambition in those days allowed few of the finer 
feelings to come to the surface, except with 
regard to the luxuriance of surroundings. Of 
this last there can be no question, and Blois 
is as characteristically luxurious as any of the 
magnificent edifices which lodged the royalty 
and nobility of other days, throughout the 
valley of the Loire. 

A numismatic curiosity, connected with the 
history of the Chateau de Blois, is an ancient 
piece of money which one may see in the local 
museum. It is the oldest document in existence 
in which, or on which, the name of Blois is 
mentioned. On one side is a symbolical figure 
and the legend Bleso Castro, and on the other 
a croix haussee and the name of the officer of 
the mint at Blois, Pre Cistato, monetario. 

The plan of the Chateau de Blois here given 
shows it not as it is to-day, but as it was at 
the death of Gaston d 'Orleans in 1660. The 
constructions of the different epochs are noted 
on the plan as follows: 

Erected by the Comtes de Chatillon 
1. Tour de Donjon, Chateau-Regnault, Moulins, or des 
Oubliettes. 



The Blaisois and the Sologne 69 

2. Salle des Etats. 

3. Tour du Foix or Observatory. 

Erected by the Dues d 'Orleans 

4. Portico and Galerie d'Orleans. (Destroyed in part 
by the military.) 

5. Galerie des Cerfs. (Built in part by Gaston, but made 
away with by the city of Blois when the Jardins du Roi 
were built.) 

Erected by Louis XII. 

6. Chapelle St. Calais. (Destroyed in part by the mili- 
tary.) 

7. La Grande Vis, or Grand Escalier of Louis XL 

8. La Petite Vis, or Petit Escalier, in one chamber of 
which the corpse of the Duo de Guise was burned. 

9. Portico and Galerie de Louis XII. 

10. Portico. 

11. Salle des Gardes, — of the queen on the ground floor 
and of the king on the first floor. 

12. Bedchamber, — of the queen on the ground floor and 
of the king on the first floor. 

13. Corps de Garde. 

14. Kitchen. (To-day Salle de Reception for visitors. ) 

Erected from the Time of Francois I. to Henri III. 
15 and 16. Portico and Terrace Henri II. (In part built 
over by Gaston.) 

17. Grand Staircase. 

18. Galerie de Francois I. 

19. Staircase of the Salle des fetats. (Destroyed by the 
military.) 

20. First floor, Salle des Gardes of the queen ; second floor, 
Salle des Gardes of the king. 

21. Staircase leading to the apartments of the queen 
mother. Here also Henri III. had made the cells destined for 



70 Old Touraine and the Loire Country 

the use of the Capucins, and here were closeted ''pour s' assurer 
de leur discretion," the " Quarante-Cinq " who were to kill the 
Dae de Guise. 

22. Cabinet Neuf of Henri III. (Second floor.) 

23. Gallery where wa8 held the reunion of the Tiers Etats 
of 1576. 

24. First floor, bedchamber of the king ; second floor, bed- 
chamber of the queen. 

25. Oratory. 

26. Cabinet. 

27. Passage to the Tour de Moulins. 

28. Passage to the Cabinet Vieux, where the Due de Guise 
was struck down. 

29. Cabinet Vieux. 

30. Oratory, where the two chaplains of the king prayed 
during the perpetration of the murder. 

31. Garde-robe, where was first deposited the body of De 
Guise. 

Erected by Gaston d' Orleans 

32. Peristyle. (Destroyed by the military.) 

33. Dome. 

34. Pavilion des Jardins. 

35. Pavilion du Foix. 

36. Petit Pavilion of the M6ridionale fagade. (Destroyed 
in 1825.) 

37. Terraces. 

38. Bastions du Foix and des Jardins. 

39. L'Eperon. 

40. Le Jar din Haut, or Jar din du Roi. 

The interior court is partly surrounded by 
a colonnade, quite cloister-like in effect. At 
the right centre of the Francois I. wing is that 
wonderful spiral staircase, concerning the in- 



The Blaisois and the Sologne 71 







Jjtiit ffrnti^ 



\ 



Maisons 



S^e CHATEAUX 5;^ BbOl3 



72 Old Touraine and the Loire Country 

vention of which so much speculation has been 
launched. Leonardo da Vinci, the protege of 
Frangois, has been given the honour, and a 
very considerable volume has been written to 
prove the claim. 

Within this ^' tour octagone^^ — ^' qui fait 
a ses huit pans hurler un gorgone " — is built 




Cypher of Frangois Premier and Claude of France, at Blois 



this marvellous openwork stairway, — an 65- 
calier a jour, as the French call it, — without 
an equal in all France, and for daring and 
decorative effect unexcelled by any of those 
Renaissance motives of Italy itself. Its ascent 
turns not, as do most escaliers, from left to 
right, but from right to left. It is the proto- 
type of those supposedly unique outside stair- 



The Blaisois and the Sologne 73 

cases pointed out to country cousins in the 
abodes of Fifth Avenue millionaires. 

It is as impossible to catalogue the various 
apartments and their accessories here, as it is 
to include a chronology of the great events 
which have passed within their walls. One 
thing should be remembered, and that is, that 
the architect Duban restored the chateau 
throughout in recent years. In spite of this 
restoration one may readily enough recon- 
struct the scene of the murder of the Due de 
Guise from the great fireplace on the second 
floor before which De Guise was standing when 
summoned by a page to the kingly presence, 
from the door through which he entered to his 
death, and from the wall where hung the 
tapestry behind which he was to pass. All this 
is real enough, and also the " Tour des Oubli- 
ettes," in which the duke's brother, the car- 
dinal, suffered, and of which many horrible 
tales are still told by the attendants. 

Duban, the architect, came with his careful 
restorations and pictured with a most exact 
fidelity the decorations and the furnishings of 
the times of Francois, of Catherine, and of 
Henri III. The ornate chimneypieces have 
been furbished up anew, the walls and ceilings 
covered with new paint and gold; nothing 



74 Old Touraine and the Loire Country 

could be more opulent or glorious, but it gives 
the impression of a city dwelling or a great 
hotel, "■ newly done up," as the house reno- 
vators express it. 

One contrasting emotion will be awakened 
by a contemplation of the two great Salles des 
Gardes and the apartments of Catherine de 
Medici; here, at least for the moment, is a 
relief from the intrigues, massacres, and assas- 
sinations which otherwise went on, for one re- 
calls that, at one period, " danses, ballets et 
jeux " took place here continuously. 

In the apartments of Catherine there is much 
to remind one of '' the base Florentine," as it 
has been the fashion of latter-day historians 
to describe the first of the Medici queens. 
Nothing could be more smnptuous than the 
Galerie de la Reine, her Cabinet de Toilette, 
or her CJiambre a Coucher, with its secret 
panels, where she died on the 5th of January, 
1589, '' adored and revered," but soon for- 
gotten, and of no more account than " une 
chevre mort,^^ says one old chronicler. 

The apartments of Catherine de Medici 
were directly beneath the guard-room where 
the Balafre was murdered, and that event, 
taking place at the very moment when the 



The Blaisois and the Sologne 75 

" queen-mother " was dying, cannot be said 
to have been conducive to a peaceful demise. 

Here, on the first floor of the Frangois 
Premier wing, the reine-mere held her court, 
as did the king his. The great gallery over- 
looked the town on the side of the present 
Place du Chateau. It was, and is, a truly 
grand apartment, with diamond-paned win- 
dows, and rich, dark, wall decorations on which 
Catherine 's device, a crowned C and her mono- 
gram in gold, frequently appears. There was, 
moreover, .a great oval window, opposite which 
stood her altar, and a doorway, half concealed, 
led to her writing-closet, with its secret drawers 
and wall-panels which well served her pur- 
poses of intrigue and deceit. A hidden stair- 
way led to the floor above, and there was a 
chamhre a coucher, with a deep recess for the 
bed, the same to which she called her son Henri 
as she lay dying, admonishing him to give up 
the thought of murdering Guise. '' What," 
said Henri, on this embarrassing occasion, 
*' spare Guise, when he, triumphant in Paris, 
dared lay his hand on the hilt of his sword! 
Spare him who drove me a fugitive from the 
capital! Spare them who never spared me! 
No, mother, I will wo^." 

As the queen-mother drew near her end, 



76 Old Touraine and the Loire Country 

and was lying ill at Blois, great events for 
France were culminating at the chateau. 
Henri III. had become King of France, and 
the Balafre, supported by Rome and Spain, 
was in open rebellion against the reigning 
house, and the word had gone forth that the 
Due de Guise must die. The States General 
were to be immediately assembled, and De 
Guise, once the poetic lover of Marguerite, 
through his emissaries canvassed all France 
to ensure the triumph of the party of the 
Church against Henri de Navarre and his 
queen, — the Marguerite whom De Guise once 
professed to love, — who soon were to come to 
the throne of France. 

The uncomfortable Henri III. had been told 
that he would never be king in reality until 
De Guise had been made away with. 

The final act of the drama between the rival 
houses of Guise and Valois came when the 
king and his council came to Blois for the 
Assembly. The sunny city of Blois was indeed 
to be the scene of a momentous affair, and a 
truly sumptuous setting it was, the roof-tops 
of its houses sloping downward gently to the 
Loire, with the chief accessory, the coiffed and 
turreted chateau itself, high above all else. 

Details had been arranged with infinite 



The Blaisois and the Sologne 77 

pains, the guard doubled, and a company of 
Swiss posted around the courtyard and up and 
down the gorgeous staircase. Every nook and 
corner has its history in connection with this 
greatest event in the history of the Chateau of 
Blois. 

As Guise entered the council-chamber he was 
told that the king would see him in his closet, 
to reach which one had to pass through the 
guard-room below. The door was barred be- 
hind him that he might not return, when the 
trusty guards of the " Forty-fifth," under 
Dalahaide, already hidden behind the wall- 
tapestry, sprang upon the Balafre and forced 
him back upon the closed door through which 
he had just passed. Guise fell stabbed in the 
breast by Malines, and ^' lay long uncovered 
until an old carpet was found in which to wrap 
his corpse." 

Below, in her own apartments, lay the queen- 
mother, dying, but listening eagerly for the 
rush of footsteps overhead, hoping and pray- 
ing that Henri — the hitherto effeminate Henri 
who played with his sword as he would with a 
battledore, and who painted himself like a 
woman, and put rings in his ears — would not 
prejudice himself at this time in the eyes of 



78 Old Touraine and the Loire Country 

Eome by slaying the leader of the Church 
party. 

Guise died as Henri said he would die, with 
the words on his lips: " A moi, mes amis! — 
trahison! — a moi, Guise, — je me meurs,^^ but 
the revenge of the Church party came when, at 
St. Cloud, the monk, Jacques Clement, poi- 
gnarded the last of the Valois, and put the then 
heretical Henri de Navarre on the throne of 
France. 

Within the southernmost confines of the 
chateau is the Tour de Foix, so called for the 
old faubourg near by. The upper story and 
roof of this curious round tower was the work 
of Catherine de Medici, who installed there her 
astrologer and maker of philtres, Cosmo Eug- 
gieri. 

Euggieri was a most versatile person; he 
was astrologer, alchemist, and philosopher 
alike, besides being many other kinds of a 
rogue, all of which was very useful to the 
Medici now that she had come to power. 

Catherine built an outside stairway up to the 
platform of this tower, and a great, flat, stone 
table was placed there to form a foundation 
for Euggieri 's cabalistic instruments. Even 
this stone table itself was an uncanny affair, 
if we are to believe the old chronicles. It rang 



The Blaisois and the Sologne 79 

out in a clear sharp note whenever struck with 
some hard body, and on its surface was graven 
a line which led the eye directly toward the 
golden fieur-de-lys on the cupola of Cham- 
bord's chateau, some three leagues distant on 
the other side of the Loire. What all this sym- 
bolism actually meant nobody except Catherine 
and her astrologer knew; at least, the details 
do not appear to have come down to enlighten 
posterity. Over the doorway of the observa- 
tory were graven the words, " Vranice Sa- 
crum,'''' i. e., consecrated to Uranius. 

Wherever Catherine chose to reside, whether 
in Touraine or at Paris, her astrologer and his 
" observatoire " formed a part of her train. 
She had brought Cosmo from Jtaly, and never 
for a moment did he leave her. He was a sort 
of a private demon on whom Catherine could 
shoulder her poisonings and her stabs, and, 
as before said, he was an exceedingly busy 
functionary of the court. 

That part of the structure built by Man- 
sart for Gaston d 'Orleans appears strange, 
solemn, and superfluous in connection with the 
sumptuousness of the earlier portions. With 
what poverty the architectural art of the 
seventeenth century expressed itself ! What an 
inferiority came with the passing of the six- 



80 Old Touraine and the Loire Country 

teentli century and the advent of the following ! 
One finds a certain grandeur in the outlines of 
this last wing, with its majestic cupola over 
the entrance pavilion, but the general effect 
of the decorations is one of a great paucity of 
invention when compared to the more brilliant 
Renaissance forerunners on the opposite side 
of the courtyard. 

It was under the regime of Gaston d 'Orleans 
that the gardens of the Chateau de Blois came 
to their greatest excellence and beauty. In 
1653 Abel Brunyer, the first physician of Gas- 
ton's suite, published a catalogue of the fruits 
and flowers to be found here in these gardens, 
of which he was also director. More than five 
hundred varieties were included, three-quar- 
ters of which belonged to the flora of France. 

Among the delicacies and novelties of the 
time to be found here was the Prunier de Reine 
Claude, from which those delicious green plums 
known to all the world to-day as '* Reine 
Claudes " were propagated, also another vari- 
ety which came from the Prunier de Monsieur, 
somewhat similar in taste but of a deep purple 
colour. The pomme de terre was tenderly 
cared for and grown as a great novelty and 
delicacy long before its introduction to general 
cultivation by Parmentier. The tomato was 



The Blaisois and the Sologne 81 

imported from Mexico, and even tobacco was 
grown ; from which it may be judged that Gas- 
ton did not intend to lack the good things of life. 

All these facts are recounted in Brunyer's 
" Hortus Eegius Blesensis," and, in addition, 
one Morrison, an expatriate Scotch doctor, who 
had attached himself to Gaston, also wrote a 
competing work which was published in London 
in 1669 under the title of '^ Preludia Bota- 
nica, ' ' and which dealt at great length with the 
already celebrated gardens of the Chateau de 
Blois. 

Morrison placed at the head of his work a 
Latin verse which came in time to be graven 
over the gateway of the gardens. This — as 
well as pretty much all record of it — has dis- 
appeared, but a repetition of the lines will 
serve to show with what admiration this para- 
dise was held: 

« Hinc, nulli biferi miranda rosaria Pesti, 
Nee mala Hesperidum, vigili servata dracone. 
Si paradisiacis quicquam (sine crimine) campis 
Conferri possit, Blaesis mirabile specta. 
Magnifici Gastonis opus ! Qui terra capaci . . . 

JACOBUS METELANUS SCOTUS." 

Not merely in history has the famous cha- 
teau at Blois played its part. Writers of fie- 



82 Old Touraine and the Loire Country 

tion have more than once used it as an acces- 
sory or the principal scenic background of their 
sword and cloak novels; none more effectively 
than Dumas in the D'Artagnan series. 

The opening lines of ' ' Le Vicomte de Brage- 
lonne " are laid here. '^ It should have been 
a source of pride to the city of Blois," says 
Dumas, '' that Gaston of Orleans had chosen 
it as his residence, and held his court in the 
ancient chateau of the States." 

Here, too, in the second volume of the D'Ar- 
tagnan romances, is the scene of that most 
affecting meeting between his Majesty Charles 
II., King of England, and Louis XIV. 

Altogether one lives here in the very spirit 
of the pages of Dumas. Not only Blois, but 
Langeais, Chambord, Cheverny, Amboise, and 
many other chateaux figure in the novels with 
an astonishing frequency, and, whatever the 
critics may say of the author's slips of pen 
and memory, Dumas has given us a wonder- 
fully faithful picture of the life of the times. 

In 1793 all the symbols and emblems of roy- 
alty were removed from the chateau and des- 
troyed. The celebrated bust of Gaston, the 
chief artistic attribute of that part of the edi- 
fice built by him, was decapitated, and the 
statue of Louis XII. over the entrance gateway 



The Blaisois and the Sologne 83 

was overturned and broken up. Afterward the 
chateau became the property of the " do- 
maine " and was turned into a mere barracks. 
The Pavilion of Queen Anne became a " ma- 
gasin des subsistances militaires, the Tour de 
I'Observatoire, a powder-magazine, and all the 
indignities imaginable were heaped upon the 
chateau. 

In 1814 Blois became the last capital of 
Napoleon's empire, and the chateau walls shel- 
tered the prisoners captured by the imperial 
army. 

Blois 's most luxurious church edifice was the 
old abbey church of St. Sauveur, which was 
built from 1138 to 1210. It lost the royal fa- 
vour in 1697, when Louis XIV. made Blois a 
city of bishops as well as of counts, and trans- 
ferred the chapter of St. Sauveur 's to the bas- 
tard Gothic edifice first known as St. Solenne, 
but which soon took on the name of St. Louis. 
In spite of the claims of the old church, this 
cold, unfeeling, and ugly mixture of tomblike 
Eenaissance became, and still remains, the 
bishop's church of Blois. 

One must not neglect or forget the magnifi- 
cent bridge which crosses the Loire at Blois. 
A work of 1717 - 24, it bears the Eue Denis 
Papin across its eleven solidly built masonry 



84 Old Touraine and the Loire Country 

piers. Above the central arch is erected a 
memorial pyramid and tablet which states the 
fact that it was one of the first works of the 
reign of Louis XV. 

Blois altogether, then, offers a multitudinous 
array of attractions for the tourist who makes 
his first entrance to the chateaux country 
through its doors. The town itself has not the 
appeal of Tours, of Angers, or of Nantes ; but, 
for all that, its abundance of historic lore, the 
admirable preservation of its chief monument, 
and the general picturesqueness of its site and 
the country round about make up for many 
other qualities that may be lacking. 

The Sologne, lying between Blois, Vierzon, 
and Chateauneuf-sur-Loire, is a great region 
of lakelets, sandy soil, and replanted Corsican 
pines, which to-day has taken on a new lease 
of life and a prosperity which was unknown 
in the days when the Comtes de Blois first 
erected that maison de plaisance on its western 
border which was afterward to aggrandize it- 
self into the later Chateau de Chambord. The 
soil has been drained and the vine planted to 
a hitherto undreamed of extent, until to-day, 
if the land does not exactly blossom like the 
rose, it at least somewhat approaches it. 

The cJiaumieres of the Sologne have disap- 



The Blaisois and the Sologne 85 

peared to a large extent, and their mud walls 
and thatched roofs are not as frequent a detail 
of the landscape as formerly, but even now there 
is .a distinct individuality awaiting the artist 
who will go down among these vineyard work- 
ers of the Sologne and paint them and their 
surroundings as other parts have been painted 
and popularized. It will be hot work in the 
summer months, and lonesome work at all times, 
but there is a new note to be sounded if one 
but has the ear for it, and it is to be heard right 
here in this tract directly on the beaten track 
from north to south, and yet so little known. 

The peasant of the Solo,.<^ne formerly ate his 
soupe au poireau and a morsel of frontage 
maigre and was as content and happy as if his 
were a more luxurious board, as it in reality 
became when a stranger demanded hospitality. 
Then out from the armoire — that ever present 
adjunct of a French peasant's home, whether 
it be in Normandy, Touraine, or the Midi — 
came a bottle of vin hlanc, bought in the wine- 
shops of Eomorantin or Vierzon on some of 
his periodical trips to town. 

To-day all is changing, and the peasant of 
the Sologne nourishes himself better and trims 
his beard and wears a round white collar on 
fete-days. He is proud of his well-kept appear- 



86 Old Touraine and the Loire Country 

ance, but his neighbours to the north and the 
south will tell you that all this hides a deep 
malice, which is hard to believe, in spite of 
the well recognized saying, '' Sot comme un 
Solo gnat." The women have a physiognomy 
more passive ; when young they are fresh and 
lip-lively, but as they grow older their charms 
pass quickly. 

The Sologne in most respects has changed 
greatly since the days of Arthur Young. Then 
this classic land was reviled and vehement im- 
precations were launched upon the proprietors 
of its soil, — ' ' those brilliant and ambitious 
gentlemen who figure so largely in the cere- 
monies of Versailles. To-day all is changed, 
and the gentleman farmer is something more 
than a bourgeois parisien who hunts and rides 
and apes ^^ le sport " of the English country 
squire. 

The jack-rabbit and the hare are the pests 
of the Sologne now that its sandy soil has been 
conquered, but they are quite successfully kept 
down in numbers, and the insects which for- 
merly ravaged the vines are likewise less 
offensive than they used to be, so the Sologne 
may truly be said to have been transformed. 

To-day, as in the days of the royal hunt, 
when Chambord was but a shooting-box of the 



The Blaisois and the Sologne 87 

Counts of Blois, the Sologne is rife with small 
game, and even deer and an occasional sanglier. 

^' ha cJiasse " in France is no mean thing 
to-day, and the Sologne, La Beauce, and the 
great national forests of Lyons and Ram- 
bouillet draw — on the opening of the season, 
somewhere between the 28th of August and 
the 2d of September of each year — their 
hundreds of thousands of Nimrods and dis- 
ciples of St. Hubert. The bearer of the gun 
in France is indeed a most ardent sportsman, 
and in no European country can one buy in 
the open market a greater variety of small 
game, — all the product of those who pay their 
twenty francs for the privilege of bagging rab- 
bits, hares, partridges, and the like. The hunt- 
ers of France enjoy one superstition, however, 
and that is that to accidentally bag a crow on 
the first shot means a certain and sudden death 
before the day is over. 

La Motte-Beuvron is celebrated in the annals 
of the Sologne; it is, in fact, the metropolis 
of the region, and the centre from which radi- 
ated the influences which conquered the soil 
and made of it a prosperous land, where for- 
merly it was but a sandy, arid desert. La 
Motte-Beuvron is a long-drawn-out hourgade, 
like some of the populous centres of the great 



88 Old Touraine and the Loire Country 

plain of Hungary, and there is no great pros- 
perity or '' up-to-dateness " to be observed, in 
spite of its constantly increasing importance, 
for La Motte-Beuvron and the country round 
about is one of the localities of France which 
is apparently not falling off in its population. 

La Motte has a most imposing Hotel de Ville, 
a heavy edifice of brick built by Napoleon HI. 
— who has never been accused of having had 
the artistic appreciation of his greater ances- 
tor — after the model of the Arsenal at Venice. 

This is all La Motte has to warrant remark 
unless one is led to investigate the successful 
agricultural experiment which is still being 
carried out hereabouts. La Motte 's hotels and 
cafes are but ordinary, and there is no counter 
attraction of boulevard or park to place the 
town among those lovable places which trav- 
ellers occasionally come upon unawares. 

To realize the Sologne at its best and in its 
most changed aspect, one should follow the 
roadway from La Motte to Blois. He may 
either go by tramway a vapeur, or by his own 
means of communication. In either case he will 
then know why the prosperity of the Sologne 
and the contentment of the Solognat is assured. 

Eomorantin, still characteristic of the So- 
logne and its historic capital, is famous for its 



The Blaisois and the Sologne 



89 



asparagus and its paternal chateau of Fran- 
gois Premier, where that prince received the 
scar upon his face, at a tourney, which com- 
pelled him ever after to wear a beard. 

To-day the Sous-Prefecture, the Courts and 
their prisoners, the Gendarmerie, and the The- 
atre are housed under the walls that once 




Native Types in the Sologne 

formed the chateau royal of Jean d'Angou- 
leme; within whose apartments the gallant 
Frangois was brought up. 

The Sologne, like most of the other of the 
petits pays of France, is prolific in supersti- 
tions and traditionary customs, and here for 
some reason they deal largely of the marriage 
state. When the paysan solognais marries, he 



90 Old Touraine and the Loire Country 

takes good care to press the marriage-ring well 
up to the third joint of his spouse's finger, 
" else she will be the master of the house," 
which is about as well as the thing can be ex- 
pressed in English. It seems a simple precau- 
tion, and any one so minded might well do the 
same under similar circumstances, provided he 
thinks the proceeding efficacious. 

Again, during the marriage ceremony itself, 
each of the parties most interested bears a 
lighted wax taper, with the belief that which- 
ever first burns out, so will its bearer die first. 
It's a gruesome thought, perhaps, but it gives 
one an inkling of who stands the best chance 
of inheriting the other's goods, which is what 
matches are sometimes made for. 

The marriage ceremony in the Sologne is a 
great and very public function. Intimates, 
friends, acquaintances, and any of the neigh- 
bouring populace who may not otherwise be 
occupied, attend, and eat, drink, and ultimately 
get merry. But they have a sort of process of 
each paying his or her own way ; at least a col- 
lection is taken up to pay for the entertainment, 
for the Sologne peasant would otherwise start 
his married life in a state of bankruptcy from 
which it would take him a long time to recover. 

The collection is made with considerable 



The Blaisois and the Sologne 91 

eclat and has all the elements of picturesque- 
ness that one usually associates with the wed- 
ding processions that one sees on the comic- 
opera stage. A sort of nuptial bouquet — a 
great bunch of field flowers — is handed round 
from one guest to another, and for a sniff of 
their fragrance and a participation in the col- 
lation which is to come, they make an offering, 
dropping much or little into a golden (not gold) 
goblet which is passed around by the bride her- 
self. 

In the Sologne there is (or was, for the 
writer has never seen it) another singular cus- 
tom of the marriage service — not really a part 
of the churchly office, but a sort of practical 
indorsement of the actuality of it all. 

The bride and groom are both pricked with 
a needle until the blood runs, to demonstrate 
that neither the man nor the woman is insen- 
sible or dreaming as to the purport of the cere- 
mony about to take place. 

As every French marriage is at the Mairie, 
as well as being held in church, this double 
ceremony (and the blood-letting as well) must 
make a very hard and fast agreement. Per- 
haps it might be tried elsewhere with ad- 
vantage. 

Montrichard, on the Cher, is on the border- 



92 Old Touraine and the Loire Country 

land between the Blaisois and Touraine. Its 
donjon announces itself from afar as a mag- 
nificent feudal ruin. The town is moreover 
most curious and original, the great rectangu- 
lar donjon rising high into the sky above a 
series of cliff-dwellers' chalk-cut homes, in 
truly weird fashion. 

There is nothing so very remarkable about 
cliff-dwellers in the Loire country, and their 
aspect, manners, and customs do not differ 
greatly from those of their neighbours, who 
live below them. 

Curiously enough these rock-cut dwellings 
appear dry and healthful, and are not in the 
least insalubrious, though where a cave has 
been devoted only to the storage of wine in 
vats, barrels, and bottles the case is somewhat 
different. 

Montrichard itself, outside of these scores 
of homes burrowed out of the cliff, is most 
picturesque, with stone-pignoned gables and 
dormer-windows and window-frames cut or 
worked in wood or stone into a thousand 
amusing shapes. 

Montrichard, with Chinon, takes the lead in 
interesting old houses in these parts; in fact, 
they quite rival the ruinous lean-to houses of 
Eouen and Lisieux in Normandy, which is say- 




Donjon oj Montrichard 



The Blaisois and the Sologne 93 

ing a good deal for their picturesque qual- 
ities. 

One-third of Montrichard's population live 
underground or in houses built up against the 
hillsides. Even the lovely old parish church 
backs against the rock. 

Everywhere are stairways and > petit s cJie- 
mins leading upward or downward, with little 
fagades, windows, or doorways coming upon 
one in most unexpected and mysterious fashion 
at every turn. 

The magnificent donjon is a relic of the work 
of that great fortress-builder, Foulques Nerra, 
Comte d'Anjou, who dotted the land wherever 
he trod with these masterpieces of their kind, 
most of them great rectangular structures like 
the donjons of Britain, but quite unlike the 
structures of their class mostly seen in France. 

Richard Coeur de Lion occupied the fortress 
in 1108, but was obliged to succumb to his rival 
in power, Philippe-Auguste, who in time made 
a breach in its walls and captured it. There- 
after it became an outpost of his own, from 
whence he could menace the Comte d'Anjou. 



CHAPTEE IV. 



CHAMBORD 



Chambord is four leagues from Blois, from 
which point it is usually approached. To reach 
it one crosses the Sologne, not the arid waste 
it has been pictured, but a desert which has 
been made to blossom as the rose. 

A glance of the eye, given anywhere along 
the road from Blois to Chambord, will show 
a vineyard of a thousand, two thousand, or 
even more acres, where, from out of a soil that 
was once supposed to be the poorest in all wine- 
growing France, may be garnered a crop equal- 
ling a hundred dozen of bottles of good rich 
wine to the acre. 

This wine of the Sologne is not one of the 
famous wines of France, to be sure, but what 
one gets in these parts is pure and astonish- 
ingly palatable; moreover, one can drink large 
potions of it — as do the natives — without 
being affected in either his head or his pocket- 
book. 

94 



Chambord 95 



From late September to early December 
there is a constant harvest going on in the 
vineyards, whose labourers, if not as pictur- 
esque and joyous as we are wont to see them 
on the comic-opera stage, are at least wonder- 
fully clever and industrious, for they make a 
good wine crop out of a soil which previously 
gave a living only to charcoal-burners and goat- 
keepers. 

FrauQois was indeed a rare devotee of the 
building mania when he laid out the wood 
which surrounds Chambord and which ulti- 
mately grew to some splendour. The nine- 
teenth century saw this great wood cut and 
sold in huge quantities, so that to-day it is 
rather a scanty copse through which one drives 
on the way from Blois. 

The country round about is by no means 
impoverished, — far from it. It is simply un- 
worked to its fullest extent as yet. As it is 
plentifully surrounded by water it makes an 
ideal land for the growing of asparagus, straw- 
berries, and grapes, and so it has come to be 
one of the most prosperous and contented 
regions in all the Loire valley. 

The great white Chateau de Chambord, with 
its turrets and its magnificent lantern, looms 
large from whatever direction it is approached, 



96 Old Touraine and the Loire Country 

though mostly it is framed by the somewhat 
stunted pines which make up the pleasant for- 
est. The vistas which one sees when coming 
toward Chambord, through the drives and 
alleys of its park, with the chateau itself bril- 
liant in the distance, are charming and fairy- 
like indeed. Straight as an arrow these road- 
ways run, and he who traverses one of those 
centring at the chateau will see a tiny white 
fleck in the sunlight a half a dozen kilometres 
away, which, when it finally is reached, will be 
admitted to be the greatest triumph of the art- 
loving monarch. 

Frangois Premier was foremost in every 
artistic expression in France, and the court, 
as may be expected, were only too eager to 
follow the expensive tastes of their monarch, — 
when they could get the means, and when they 
could not, often enough Frangois supplied the 
wherewithal. 

Francois himself dressed in the richest of 
Italian velvets, the more brilliant the better, 
with a preponderant tendency toward pink and 
sky blue. 

A dozen years after Frangois came to the 
throne, a dozen years after the pleasant life 
of Amboise, when mother, daughter, and son 
lived together on the banks of the Loire in that 



Chambord 97 



a Trinity of love," the monarcli and his wife, 
Queen Claude of France, the daughter of 
Louis XII. and Anne of Brittany, came to live 
at Chambord on the edge of the sandy Sologne 
waste. 

Here, too, came Marguerite d'Alengon, the 
ever faithful and devoted sister of Francois, 
the duke, her husband, and all the gay members 
of the court. The hunt was the order of the 
day, for the forest tract of the Sologne, scanty 
though it was in growth, abounded in small 
game. 

Chambord at this time had not risen to the 
grand and ornate proportions which we see 
to-day, but set snugly on the low, swampy banks 
of the tiny river Cosson, a dull, gloomy medi- 
aeval fortress, whose only aspect of gaiety was 
that brought by the pleasure-loving court when 
it assembled there. In size it was ample to 
accommodate the court, but Francois's artistic 
temperament already anticipated many and 
great changes. The Loire was to be turned 
from its course and the future pompous palace 
was to have its feet bathed in the limpid Loire 
water rather than in the stagnant pools of the 
morass which then surrounded it. 

As a triumph of the royal chateau-builder's 
art, Chambord is far and away ahead of Fon- 



98 Old Touraine and the Loire Country 

tainebleau or Versailles, both of wMch were 
built in a reign which ended two hundred years 
later than that which began with the erection 
of Chambord. As an example of the arts of 
FranQois I. and his time compared with those 
of Louis XIV. and his, Chambord stands forth 
with glorious significance. 

On the low banks of the Cosson, Frangois 
achieved perhaps the greatest triumph that 
Eenaissance architecture had yet known. 

It was either Chambord, or the reconstruc- 
tion by Frangois of the edifice belonging to the 
Counts of Blois, which resulted in the refine- 
ment of the Eenaissance style less than a quar- 
ter of a century after its introduction into 
France by Charles VIII., — if he really was 
responsible for its importation from Italy. 
Frangois lacked nothing of daring, and built 
and embellished a structure which to-day, in 
spite of numerous shortcomings, stands as the 
supreme type of a great Renaissance domestic 
edifice of state. Every device of decoration 
and erratic suggestion seems to have been car- 
ried out, not only structurally, as in the great 
double spiral of its central stairway, but in its 
interpolated details and symbolism as well. 

It was at this time, too, that Frangois began 
to introduce the famous salamander into his 



Chambord 



99 



devices and ciphers; that most significant em- 
blem which one may yet see on wall and ceil- 
ing of Chambord surrounded by the motto : 
" Je me nourris et je meurs dans le feu." 

Chambord, first of all, gives one a very high 
opinion of Frangois Premier, and of the splen- 
dours with which he was wont to surround 
himself. The apartments are large and numer- 




Arms of Frani^ois Premier, at Chambord 

ous and are admirably planned and decorated, 
though, almost without exception, bare to-day 
of furniture or furnishings. 

To quote the opinion of Blondel, the cele- 
brated French architect: " The Chateau de 
Chambord, built under Frangois I. and 
Henri II., from the designs of Primatice, was 
never achieved according to the original plan. 
Louis XIII. and Louis XIV. contributed a cer- 



100 Old Touraine and the Loire Country 

tain completeness, but the work was really 
pursued afterward according to the notions of 
one Sertio." 

The masterpiece of its constructive elements 
is its wonderful doubly spiralled central stair- 
case, which permits one to ascend or descend 
without passing another proceeding in the 
opposite direction at the same time. Whatever 
may have been the real significance of this 
great double spiral, it has been said that it 
played its not unimportant part in the intrigue 
and scandal of the time. It certainly is a won- 
der of its kind, more marvellous even than that 
spiral at Blois, attributed, with some doubt 
perhaps, to Leonardo da Vinci, and certainly 
far more beautiful than the clumsy round 
tower up which horses and carriages were once 
driven at Amboise. 

At all events, it probably meant something 
more than mere constructive ability, and a 
staircase which allows one individual to mount 
and another to descend without knowing of 
the presence of the other may assuredly be 
classed with those other mediaeval accessories, 
sliding panels, hidden doorways, and secret 
cabinets. 

Beneath the dome which terminates the stair- 
case in the Orleans wing are three caryatides 



Chambord 101 



representing — it is doubtfully stated — Fran- 
Qois Premier, La Duchesse d'ljtampes, and 
Madame la Comtesse de Chateaubriand, — a 
trinity of boon companions in intrigue. 

In reality Chambord presents the curiously 
contrived arrangement of one edifice within an- 
other, as a glance of the eye at the plan will 
show. 

The fosse, the usual attribute of a great 
mediaeval chateau — it may be a dry one or 
a wet one, in this case it was a wet one — has 
disappeared, though' Brantome writes that he 
saw great iron rings let into the walls to which 
were attached " barques et grands bateaux/' 
which had made their way from the Loire via 
the dribbling Cosson. 

The Cosson still dribbles its life away to-day, 
its moisture having, to a great part, gone to 
irrigate the sandy Sologne, but formerly it was 
doubtless a much more ample stream. 

From the park the ornate gables and dormer- 
windows loom high above the green-swarded 
banks of the Cosson. It was so in Francois's 
time, and it is so to-day; nothing has been 
added to break the spread of lawn, except an 
iron-framed wash-house with red tiles and a 
sheet-iron chimney-pot beside the little river, 



102 Old Touraine and the Loire Country 

and a tin-roofed garage for automobiles con- 
nected with the little inn outside the gates. 

The rest is as it was of yore, at least, the 
same as the old engravings of a couple of hun- 
dreds of years ago picture it, hence it is a great 
shame, since the needs of the tiny village could 
not have demanded it, that the foreground 
could not have been left as it originally was. 

The town, or rather village, or even hamlet, 
of Chambord is about the most abbreviated 
thing of its kind existent. There is practically 
no village ; there are a score or two of houses, 
an inn of the frankly tourist kind, which evi- 
dently does not cater to the natives, the afore- 
said wash-house by the river bank, the dwell- 
ings of the gamekeepers, gardeners, and work- 
men on the estate, and a diminutive church ris- 
ing above the trees not far away. These acces- 
sories practically complete the make-up of the 
little settlement of Chambord, on the borders 
of the Blaisois and Touraine. 

Chambord has been called top-heavy, but it 
is hardly that. Probably the effect is caused 
by its low-lying situation, for, as has been in- 
timated before, this most imposing of all of 
the Loire chateaux has the least desirable situa- 
tion of any. There is a certain vagueness and 
foreignness about the sky-line that is almost 



Chambord 



103 



Eastern, though we recognize it as pure Eenais- 
sance. Perhaps it is the magnitude and lone- 
someness of it all that makes it seem so 
strange, an effect that is heightened when one 
steps out upon its roof, with the turrets, tow- 
ers, and cupolas still rising high above. 




The ground-plan is equally magnificent, 
flanked at every corner by a great round tower, 
with another quartette of them at the angles 
of the interior court. 

Most of the stonework of the fabric is bril- 
liant and smooth, as if it were put up but yes- 



104 Old Touraine and the Loire Country 

terday, and, beyond the occasional falling of 
a tile from the wonderful array of chimney- 
pots, but little evidences are seen exteriorly 
of its having decayed in the least. On the 
tower which flanks the little door where one 
meets the concierge and enters, there are un- 
mistakable marks of bullets and balls, which a 
revolutionary or some other fury left as me- 
mentoes of its passage. 

Considering that Chambord was not a prod- 
uct of feudal times, these disfigurements seem 
out of place; still its peaceful motives could 
hardly have been expected to have lasted al- 
ways. 

The southern facade is not excelled by the 
elevation of any residential structure of any 
age, and its outlines are varied and pleasing 
enough to satisfy the most critical ; if one par- 
dons the little pepper-boxes on the north and 
south towers, and perforce one has to pardon 
them when he recalls the magnifi.cence of the 
general disposition and sky-line of this mar- 
vellously imposing chateau of the Renais- 
sance. 

Frangois Premier made Chambord his fa- 
vourite residence, and in fact endowed Pierre 
Nepveu — who for this work alone will be con- 
sidered one of the foremost architects of the 




'!:S 









o 



Chambord 105 



French Renaissance — with the inspiration for 
its erection in 1526. 

A prodigious amount of sculpture by Jean 
Cousin, Pierre Bontemps, Jean Goujon, and 
Germain Pilon was interpolated above the 
doorways and windows, in the framing thereof, 
and above the great fireplaces. Inside and 
out, above and below, were vast areas to be 
covered, and Frangois allowed his taste to have 
full sway. 

The presumptuous Frangois made much of 
this noble residence, perhaps because of his 
love of la cJiasse, for game abounded here- 
abouts, or perhaps because of his regard for 
the Comtesse Thoury, who occupied a neigh- 
bouring chateau. 

For some time before his death, Francois 
still lingered on at Chambord. Marguerite and 
her brother, both now considerably aged since 
the happier times of their childhood in Tou- 
raine, always had an indissoluble fondness 
for Chambord. Marguerite had now become 
Queen of Navarre, but her beauty had been 
dimmed with the march of time, and she no 
longer was able to comfort and amuse her 
kingly brother as of yore. His old pleasures 
and topics of conversation irritated him, and 



106 Old Touraine and the Loire Country 

he had even tired of poetry, art, and political 
affairs. 

Above all, he shamefully and shamelessly 
abused women, at once the prop and the under- 
mining influence of his kingly power in days 
gone by. There is an existing record to the 
effect that he wrote some " window-pane " 
verse on the window of his private apartment 
to the following effect: 

" Souvent f emme varie ; 
Mai habile quis'y fie ! " 

If this be not apocryphal, the incident must 
have taken place long years before that cele- 
brated '^ window-pane " verse of Shenstone's, 
and FranQois is proven again a forerunner, as 
he was in many other things. 

Without doubt the Revolution did away with 
this square of glass, which — according to Pi- 
ganiol de la Force — existed in the middle of 
the eighteenth century. Perhaps Frangois's 
own jealous humour prompted him to write 
these cynical lines, and then again perhaps it 
is merely one of those fables which breathe the 
breath of life in some unaccountable manner, 
no one having been present at its birth, and 
hearsay and tradition accounting for it all. 

FranQois, truly, was failing, and he and his 
sister discussed but sorrowful subjects: the 



Chambord 107 



death of liis favourite son, Charles, the inher- 
itor of the throne, at Abbeville, where he be- 
came infected with the plague, and also the 
death of him whom he called ' ' his old friend, ' ' 
Henry VIII. of England, a monarch whose 
amours were as numerous and celebrated as 
his own. 

Henri II. preferred the attractions of Anet 
to Chambord, while Catherine de Medici and 
Charles IX. cared more for Blois, Chaumont, 
and Chenonceaux. Louis XIII. and Louis XIV. 
only considered it as a rendezvous for the 
chase, and the latter 's successor, Louis XV., 
gave it to the illustrious Maurice de Saxe, the 
victor of Fontenoy, who spent his old age here, 
amid fetes, pleasures, and military parades. 
Near by are the barracks, built for the accom- 
modation of the regiment of horse formed by 
the marechal and devoted to his special guardi- 
anship and pleasure, and paid for by the king, 
who in turn repaid himself — with interest — 
from the public treasury. The exercising of 
this " little army " was one of the chief amuse- 
ments of the illustrious old soldier. 

« A de feints combats 
Lui-m@me en se jouant conduit les vieux soldats " — 

wrote the Abbe de Lille in contemporary times. 
King Stanislas of Poland lived here from 



108 Old Touraine and the Loire Country 

1725 to 1733, and later it was given to Marechal 
Berthier, by whose widow it was sold in 1821. 

It was bought by national subscription for 
a million and a half of francs and given to 
the Due de Bordeaux, who immediately com- 
menced its restoration, for it had been horribly 
mutilated by Marechal de Saxe, and the sur- 
rounding wood had been practically denuded 
under the Berthier occupancy. 

The Due de Bordeaux died in 1883, and his 
heirs, the Due de Parme and the Comte de 
Bardi, are now said to spend a quarter of a 
million annually in the maintenance of the 
estate, the income of which approximates only 
half that sum. 

There are thirteen great staircases in the 
edifice, and a room for every day in the year. 
On the ground floor is the Salle des Gardes, 
from which one mounts by the great spiral to 
another similar apartment with a barrel- 
vaulted roof, which in a former day was con- 
verted into a theatre, where in 1669-70 were 
held the first representations of " Pourceau- 
gnac " and '' Le Bourgeois Gentilhomme, " 
and where Moliere himself frequently ap- 
peared. 

The second floor is know as the '^ grandes 
t err asses '' and surrounds the base of the great 



Chambord 109 



central lantern so admired from the exterior. 
On this floor, to the eastward, were the apart- 
ments of Frangois Premier. The chapel was 
constructed by Henri II., but the tribune is of 
the era of Louis XIV. This tribune is dec- 
orated with a fine tapestry, made by Madame 
Royale while imprisoned in the Temple. At the 
base of the altar is also a tapestry made and 
presented to the Comte de Chambord by the 
women of the Limousin. 

The apartments of Louis XIV. contain por- 
traits of Madame de Maintenon and Madame 
de Lafayette, a great painting of the ' ' Bataille 
de Fontenoy," and another of the Comte de 
Chambord on horseback. 



CHAPTEE V. 

CHEVEKNY, BEAUEEGARD, AND CHAUMONT 

From Chambord and its overpowering mas- 
siveness one makes his way to Chaumont, on 
the banks of the Loire below Blois, by easy 
stages across the plain of the Sologne. 

One leaves the precincts of Chambord by the 
back entrance, as one might call it, through six 
kilometres of forest road, like that by which 
one enters, and soon passes the little townlet 
of Bracieux. 

One gets glimpses of more or less modern 
residential chateaux once and again off the 
main road, but no remarkably interesting 
structures of any sort are met with until one 
reaches Cheverny. Just before Cheverny one 
passes Cour-Cheverny, with a curious old 
church and a quaint-looking little inn beside it. 

Cheverny itself is, however, the real attrac- 
tion, two kilometres away. Here the chateau 
is opened by its private owners from April to 

110 




Chateau de Cheverny 



Cheverny, Beauregard, Ohaumont 111 

October of each year, and, while not such a 
grand establishment as many of its contem- 
poraries round about, it is in every way a per- 
fect residential edifice of the seventeenth cen- 
tury, when the flowery and ornate Eenaissance 
had given way to something more severely 
classical, and, truth to tell, far less pleasing 
in an artistic sense. 

Cheverny belongs to-day to the Marquis de 
Vibraye, one of those undying titles of the 
French nobility which thrive even in repub- 
lican France and uphold the best traditions of 
the noblesse of other days. 

The chateau was built much later than most 
of the neighbouring chateaux, in 1634, by the 
Comte de Cheverny, Philippe Hurault. It sits 
green-swarded in the midst of a beautifully 
wooded park, and the great avenue which faces 
the principal entrance extends for seven kilo- 
metres, a distance not excelled, if equalled, by 
any private roadway elsewhere. 

In its constructive features the chateau is 
more or less of rectangular outlines. The pa- 
vilions at each corner have their openings a la 
imperiale, with the domes, or lanterns, so cus- 
tomary during the height of the style under 
Louis XIV. An architect, Boyer by name, who 
came from Blois, where surely he had the op- 



112 Old Touraine and the Loire Country 

portunity of having been well acquainted with 
a more beautiful style, was responsible for the 
design of the edifice at Cheverny. 

The interior decorations in Cordovan leather, 
the fine chimneypieces, and the many elaborate 
historical pictures and wall paintings, by Mos- 
nier, Clouet, and Mignard, are all of the best 
of their period; while the apartments them- 
selves are exceedingly ample, notably the Ap- 
partement du Roi, furnished as it was in the 
days of '* Vert G-alant," the Salle des Grardes, 
the library and an elaborately traceried stair- 
case. In the chapel is an altar-table which 
came from the Eglise St. Calais, in the chateau 
at Blois. 

Just outside the gates is a remarkable crotch- 
ety old stone church, with a dwindling, top- 
pling spire. It is poor and impoverished when 
compared with most French churches, and has 
a most astonishing timbered veranda, with a 
straining, creaking roof running around its two 
unobstructed walls. The open rafters are filled 
with all sorts of rubbish, and the local fire 
brigade keeps its hose and ladders there. A 
most suitable old rookery it is in which to start 
a first-class conflagration. 

Within are a few funeral marbles of the 
Hurault family, and the daily offices are con- 



Cheverny, Beauregard, Chaumont 113 




114 Old Touraine and the Loire Country 

ducted with a pomp most unexpected. Alto- 
gether it forms, as to its fabric and its func- 
tions, as strong a contrast of activity and decay 
as one is likely to see in a long journey. 

The town itself is a sleepy, unprogressive 
place, where automobilists may not even buy 
essence a petrole, and, though boasting — if 
the indolent old town really does boast — a 
couple of thousand souls, one still has to jour- 
ney to Cour-Cheverny to send a telegraphic 
despatch or buy a daily paper. 

Between Cheverny and Blois is the Foret 
de Russy, which will awaken memories of the 
boar-hunts of Frangois I., which, along with 
art in all its enlightening aspects, appears to 
have been one of the chief pleasures of that 
monarch. Perhaps one ought to include also 
the love of fair women, but with them he was 
not so constant. 

On the road to Blois, also, one passes the 
Chateau de Beauregard; that is, one usually 
passes it, but he shouldn't. It is built, practi- 
cally, within the forest, on the banks of the 
little river Beauvron. An iron grille gives 
entrance to a beautiful park, and within is the 
chateau, its very name indicating the favour 
with which it was held by its royal owner. It 
was in 1520 that Frangois I. established it as 



Chevemy, Beauregard, Chaumont 115 

a rendezvous de chasse. Under his son, 
Henri II., it was reconstructed, in part; en- 
tirely remodelled in the seventeenth century; 
and ^' modernized " — whatever that may 
mean — in 1809, and again, more lately, re- 
stored by the Due de Dino. It belongs to-day 
to the Comte de Cholet, who has tried his hand 
at '' restoration " as well. 

The history of this old chateau is thus seen 
to have been most varied, and it is pretty sure 
to have lost a good deal of its original char- 
acter in the transforming process. 

The interior is more attractive than is the 
exterior. There is a grand gallery of portraits 
of historical celebrities, more than 350, exe- 
cuted between 1617 and 1638 by Paul Ardier, 
Counsellor of State, who thus combined the 
accomplishment of the artist with the sagacity 
of the statesman. 

The ceilings of the great rooms are mostly 
elaborate works in enamel and carved oak, and 
there is a tiled floor (carrelage) in the portrait 
gallery, in blue faience, representing an army 
in the order of battle, which must have de- 
lighted the hearts of the youthful progeny who 
may have been brought up within the walls of 
the chateau. This pavement is moreover an 



116 Old Touraine and the Loire Country 

excellent example of the craftsmanship of tile- 
making. 

One gains admission to the chateau freely 
from the concierge, who in due course expects 
her pourboire, and sees that she gets it. But 
what would you, inquisitive traveller I You 
have come here to see the sights, and Beaure- 
gard is well worth the price of admission, 
which is anything you like to give, certainly 
not less than a franc. 

One may return to Blois through the forest, 
or may continue his way down the river to 
Chaumont on the left bank. 

At Chaumont the Loire broadens to nearly 
double the width at Blois, its pebbles and sand- 
bars breaking the mirror-like surface into in- 
numerable pools and etangs. There is a bridge 
which connects Chaumont with the railway at 
Onzain and the great national highway from 
Tours to Blois. The bridge, however, is so 
hideous a thing that one had rather go miles 
out of his way than accept its hospitality. It 
is simply one of those unsympathetic wire-rope 
affairs with which the face of the globe is being 
covered, as engineering skill progresses and the 
art instinct dies out. 

The Chateau de Chaumont is charmingly 
situated, albeit it is not very accessible to 




-Si 



Chevemy, Beauregard, Chaumont 117 

strangers after one gets there, as it is open 
to the public only on Thursdays, from July to 
December. It is exactly what one expects to 
find, — a fine riverside establishment of its 
epoch, and in architectural style combining the 
well-recognized features of late Gothic and the 
early Renaissance. It is not moss-grown or 
decrepit in any way, which fact, considering 
its years, is perhaps remarkable. 

The park of the chateau is only of moderate 
extent, but the structure itself is, compara- 
tively, of much larger proportions. The ideal 
view of the structure is obtained from midway 
on that ungainly bridge which spans the Loire 
at this point. Here, in the gold and purple 
of an autumn evening, with the placid and far- 
reaching Loire, its pools and its bars of sand 
and pebble before one, it is a scene which is 
as near idyllic as one is likely to see. 

The town itself is not attractive; one long, 
narrow lane-like street, lined on each side by 
habitations neither imposing nor of a tum- 
ble-down picturesqueness, borders the Loire. 
There is nothing very picturesque, either, about 
the homes of the vineyard workers round 
about. Below and above the town the great 
highrpad runs flat and straight between Tours 
and Blois on either side of the river, and auto- 



118 Old Touraine and the Loire Country 

mobilists and cyclists now roll along where the 
state carriages of the court used to roll when 
Frangois Premier and his sons journeyed from 
one gay country house to another. 

It is to be inferred that the aspect of things 
at Chaumont has not changed much since that 
day, — always saving that spider-net wire 
bridge. The population of the town has doubt- 
less grown somewhat, even though small towns 
in France sometimes do not increase their 
population in centuries ; but the topographical 

Signature of Diane de Poitiers 

aspect of the long-drawn-out village, backed by 
green hills on one side and the Loire on the 
other, is much as it always has been. 

The chateau at Chaumont had its origin as 
far back as the tenth century, and its proprie- 
tors were successively local seigneurs. Counts 
of Blois, the family of Amboise, and Diane 
de Poitiers, who received it from Catherine in 
exchange for Chenonceaux. This was not a fair 
exchange, and Diane was, to some extent, 
justified in her complaints. 

Chaumont was for a time in the possession 



Cheverny, Beauregard, Chaumont 119 

of Scipion Sardini, one of the Italian partisans 
of the Medici, '' whose arms bore trois sardines 
d' argent," and who had married Isabelle de la 
Tour, " la Demoiselle de Limieul " of unsa- 
voury reputation. 

The " Demoiselle de Limieul " was related, 
too, to Catherine, and was celebrated in the 
gallantries of the time in no enviable fashion. 
She was a member of that band of demoiselles 
whose business it was — by one fascination or 
another — to worm political secrets from the 
nobles of the court. One horrible scandal con- 
nected the unfortunate lady with the Prince de 
Conde, but it need not be repeated here. The 
Huguenots ridiculed it in those memorable 
verses beginning thus : 

" Puella ilia nobilis 
Quae erat tarn amabilis." 

After the reign of Sardini and of his direct 
successors, the house of Bullion, Chaumont 
passed through many hands. Madame de Stael 
arrived at the chateau in the early years of the 
nineteenth century, when she had received the 
order to separate herself from Paris, ** by at 
least forty leagues." She had made the circle 
of the outlying towns, hovering about Paris as 
a moth about a candle-flame; Rouen, Auxerre, 
Blois, Saumur, all had entertained her, but now 



120 Old Touraine and the Loire Country 

she came to establish herself in this Loire cita- 
del. As the story goes, journeying from Sau- 
mur to Tours, by post-chaise, on the opposite 
side of the river, she saw the imposing mass 
of Chaumont rising high above the river-bed, 
and by her good graces and winning ways in- 
stalled herself in the affections of the then pro- 
prietor, M. Leray, and continued her residence 
" and made her court here for many years," 

Chaumont is to-day the property of the Prin- 
cesse de Broglie, who has sought to restore it, 
where needful, even to reestablishing the an- 
cient fosse or moat. This last, perhaps, is not 
needful; still, a moated chateau, or even a 
moated grange has a fascination for the sen- 
timentally inclined. 

At the drawbridge, as one enters Chaumont 
to-day, one sees the graven initials of Louis 
XII. and Anne de Bretagne, the arms of 
Georges d'Amboise, surmounted by his car- 
dinal's hat, and those of Charles de Chaumont, 
as well as other cabalistic signs: one a repre- 
sentation of a mountain (apparently) with a 
crater-like summit from which flames are 
breaking forth, while hovering about, back to 
back, are two C's: OC- The Renaissance ar- 
tists greatly affected the rebus, and this per- 
haps has some reference to the etymology of 



Cheverny, Beauregard, Chaumont 121 

the name Cliaumont, which has been variously 
given as coming from Chwud Mont, Calvus 
Mont, and Chauve Mont. 

Georges d'Amboise, the first of the name, 
was born at Chaumont in 1460, the eighth son 
of a family of seventeen children. It was a 
far cry, as distances went in those days, from 
the shores of the shallow, limpid Loire to those 
of the forceful, turgent Seine at Rouen, where 
in the great Cathedral of Notre Dame, this first 
Georges of Amboise, having become an arch- 
bishop and a cardinal, was laid to rest beneath 
that magnificent canopied tomb before which 
visitors to the Norman capital stand in wonder. 
The mausoleum bears this epitaph, which in 
some small measure describes the activities 
of the man. 

" Pastor eram cleri, populi pater ; aurea sese 
Lilia subdebant, quercus et ipsa mihi. 

" Martuus en jaceo, morte extinguunter honores, 
Et virtus, mortis nescia, mort viret." 

His was not by any means a life of placidity 
and optimism, and he had the air and reputa- 
tion of doing things. There is a saying, still 
current in Touraine: " Laissez faire a 
Georges." 

The second of the same name, also an Arch- 



122 Old Touraine and the Loire Country 

bishop of Rouen and a cardinal, succeeded his 
uncle in the see. He also is buried beneath the 
same canopy as his predecessor at Rouen. 

The main portal of the chateau leads to a fine 
quadrilateral court with an open gallery over- 
looking the Loire, which must have been a mag- 
nificent playground for the nobility of a 
former day. The interior embellishments are 
fine, some of the more noteworthy features 
being a grand staircase of the style of 
Louis XIL; the Salle des Gardes, with a 
painted ceiling showing the arms of Chaumont 
and Amboise ; the Salle du Conseil, with some 
fine tapestries and a remarkable tiled floor, 
depicting scenes of the chase; the Chambre de 
Catherine de Medici (she possessed Chaumont 
for nine years), containing some of the gifts 
presented to her upon her wedding with 
Henri II. ; and the curious Chambre de Ruggi- 
eri, the astrologer whom Catherine brought 
from her Italian home, and who was always 
near her, and kept her supplied with charms 
and omens, good and bad, and also her poisons. 

Ruggieri's observatory was above his apart- 
ment. It was at Chaumont that the astrologer 
overstepped himself, and would have used his 
magic against Charles IX. He did go so far 
as to make an image and inflict certain indig- 



Cheverny, Beauregard, Chaumont 123 

nities upon it, with the belief that the same 
would befall the monarch himself. Ruggieri 
went to the galleys for this, but the scheming 
Catherine soon had him out again, and at work 
with his poisons and philtres. 

Finally there is the Chambre de Diane de 
Poitiers, Catherine's more than successful 
rival, with a bed (modern, it is said) and a 
series of sixteenth-century tapestries, with 
various other pieces of contemporary furni- 
ture. A portrait of Diane which decorates the 
apartment is supposed to be one of the three 
authentic portraits of the fair huntress. The 
chapel has a fine tiled pavement and some 
excellent glass. 

Chaumont is eighteen kilometres from Blois 
and the same distance from Amboise. It has 
not the splendour of Chambord, but it has a 
greater antiquity, and an incomparably finer 
situation, which displays its coiffed towers and 
their machicoulis and cornices in a manner not 
otherwise possible. It is one of those picture 
chateaux which tell a silent story quite inde- 
pendent of guide-book or historical narrative. 

It was M. Donatien Le Eay de Chaumont, the 
superintendent of the forests of Berry and the 
Blaisois, under Louis XVI., who gave hospi- 
tality to Benjamin Franklin, and turned over 



124 Old Touraine and the Loire Country 

to the first American ambassador to France the 
occupancy of his house at Passy, where Frank- 
lin lived for nine consecutive years. 

Of this same M. de Chaumont Americans can- 
not have too high a regard, for his timely and 
judicious hospitality has associated his name, 
only less permanently than Franklin's, with 
the early fortunes of the American republic. 

Besides his other offices, M. de Chaumont was 
the intendant of the Hotel des Invalides, at 
Paris, holding confidential relations with the 
ministry of the young king, and was in the 
immediate enjoyment of a fortune which 
amounted to two and a half million of francs, 
besides owning, in addition to Chaumont on 
the Loire, another chateau in the Blaisois. 
This chateau he afterward tendered to John 
Adams, who declined the offer in a letter, 
written at Passy-sur-Seine, February 25, 1779, 
in the following words : "... To a mind as 
much addicted to retirement as mine, the situa- 
tion you propose would be delicious indeed, 
provided my country were at peace and my 
family with me ; but , separated from my 
family and with a heart bleeding with the 
wounds of its country, I should be the most 
miserable being on earth. ..." 

The potteries, which now form the stables 



Cheverny, Beauregard, Chaumont 125 

of the chateau at Chaumont, are somewhat rem- 
iniscent of Franklin. M. de Chaumont had 
established a pottery here, where he had found 
a clay which had encouraged him to hope that 
he could compete with the English manufac- 
turers of the time. Here the Italian Nini, who 
was invited to Chaumont, made medallions 
much sought for by collectors, among others 
one of Franklin, which was so much admired 
as a work of art, and became so much in de- 
mand that in later years replicas were made 
and are well known to amateurs. 

The family of Le Ray de Chaumont were 
extensively known in America, where they be- 
came large landholders in New York State in 
the early nineteenth century, and the head of 
the family seems to have been an amiable and 
popular landlord. The towns of Rayville and 
Chaumont in New York State still perpetuate 
his name. 

The two male members of the family secured 
American wives; Le Ray himself married a 
Miss Coxe, and their son a Miss Jahel, both of 
New York. 

From an anonymous letter to the New York 
Evening Post of November 19, 1885, one quotes 
the following: 

' ' It was in Blois that I first rummaged 



126 Old Touraine and the Loire Country 

among these shops, whose attractions are al- 
most a rival to those of the castle, though this 
is certainly one of the most interesting in 
France. The traveller will remember the long 
flight of stone steps which climbs the steep hill 
in the centre of the town. Near the foot of this 
hill there is a well-furnished book-shop; its 
windows display old editions and rich bindings, 
and tempt one to enter and inquire for antiqui- 
ties. Here I found a quantity of old notarial 
documents and diplomas of college or uni- 
versity, all more or less recently cleared out 
from some town hall, or unearthed from neigh- 
bouring castle, and sold by a careless owner, 
as no longer valuable to him. This was the case 
with most of the parchments I found at Blois ; 
they had been acquired within a few years from 
the castle of Madon, and from a former pro- 
prietor of the neighbouring castle of Chaumont 
(the calvus mons of mediaeval time), and most 
of them pertained to the affairs of the sei- 
gneiirie de Chaumont. Contracts, executions, 
sales of vineyards and houses, legal decisions, 
actes de vente, loans on mortgages, the mar- 
riage contract of a M. Lubin, — these were 
the chief documents that I found and pur- 
chased." 

The traveller may not expect to come upon 



Cheverny, Beauregard, Chaumont 127 



duplicates of these treasures again, but the 
incident only points to the fact that much doc- 
umentary history still lies more or less deeply 
buried. 



CHAPTER VI. 

toueaine: the garden spot of France 

" C'est une grande dame, une princesse altiere, 
Chacun de ses chateaux, marqu6 du sceau royal, 
Lui fait une toilette en dentelle de pierre 
Et son splendide fleuve un miroir de cristal." 

It is difficult to write appreciatively of Tou- 
raine without echoing the words of some one 
who has gone before, and it is likely that those 
who come after will find the task no easier. 

Truly, as a seventeenth-century geographer 
has said : ' ' Here is the most delicious and the 
most agreeable province of the kingdom. It 
has been named the garden of France because 
of the softness of its climate, the affability of 
its people, and the ease of its life." 

The poets who have sung the praises of Tou- 
raine are many, Eonsard, Remy Belleau, Du 
Bellay, and for prose authors we have at the 
head, Rabelais, La Fontaine, Balzac, and Alfred 
de Vigny. Merely to enumerate them all would 

128 



Touraine: Garden Spot of France 129 

be impossible, but they furnish a fund of quot- 
able material for the traveller when he is writ- 
ing home, and are equally useful to the maker 
of guide-books. 

One false note on Touraine, only, has ever 
rung out in the world of literature, and that 
was from Stendahl, who said: " La Belle Tou- 
raine n' exist e pas! '' The pages of Alfred de 
Vigny and Balzac answer this emphatically, 
and to the contrary, and every returning trav- 
eller apparently sides with them and not with 
Stendahl. 

How can one not love its prairies, gently 
sloping to the caressing Loire, its rolling hills 
and dainty ravines? The broad blue Loire is 
always vague and tranquil here, at least one 
seems always to see it so, but the beauty of 
Touraine is, after all, a quiet beauty which must 
be seen to be appreciated, and lived with to 
be loved. 

It is a land of most singular attractions, 
neither too hot nor too cold, too dry nor too 
damp, with a sufficiency of rain,, and an abun- 
dance of sunshine. Its market-gardens are 
prolific in their product, its orchards overflow- 
ing with plenitude, and its vineyards generous 
in their harvest. 

Touraine is truly the region where one may 



130 Old Touraine and the Loire Country 

read history without books, with the very pages 
of nature punctuated and adorned with the 
marvels of the French Renaissance. Louis XI. 
gave the first impetus to the alliance of the 
great domestic edifice — which we have come 
to distinguish as the residential chateau — 
with the throne, and the idea was amplified 
by Charles VIII. and glorified by Frangois 
Premier. 

In the brilliant, if dissolute, times of the 
early sixteenth century Francois Premier and 
his court travelled down through this same 
Touraine to Loches and to Amboise, where 
Francois's late gaoler, Charles Quint, was to 
be received and entertained. It was after 
FranQois had returned from his involuntary 
exile in Spain, and while he was still in res- 
idence at the Louvre, that the plans for 
the journey were made. To the Duchesse 
d'Etampes Frangois said, — the duchess who 
was already more than a rival of both Diane 
and the Comtesse de Chateaubriant, — ' ' I must 
tear myself away from you to-morrow. I shall 
await my brother Charles at Amboise on the 
Loire. ' ' 

*' Shall you not revenge yourself upon him, 
for his cruel treatment of you? " said the wily 
favourite of the time. " If he, like a fool. 



Touraine: Garden Spot of France 131 

comes to Touraine, will you not make him re- 
voke the treaty of Madrid or shut him up in one 
of Louis XL's oubliettes? " 

'' I will persuade him, if possible," said 
Frangois, " but I shall never force him." 

In due time Frangois did receive his brother 
king at Amboise and it was amid great cere- 
mony and splendour. His guest could not, or 
would not, mount steps, so that great inclined 
plane, up which a state coach and its horses 
might go, was built. Probably there was a 
good reason for the emperor's peculiarity, for 
that worthy or unworthy monarch finally died 
of gout in the monastery of San Juste. 

The meeting here at Amboise was a grand 
and ceremonious affair and the Spanish mon- 
arch soon came to recognize a possible enemy 
in the royal favourite, Anne de Pisselieu. The 
emperor's eyes, however, melted with admira- 
tion, and he told her that only in France could 
one see such a perfection of elegance and 
beauty, with the result that — as is popularly 
adduced — the susceptible, ambitious, and un- 
faithful duchess betrayed Frangois more than 
once in the affairs attendant upon the subse- 
quent wars between France, England, and 
Spain. 

From Touraine, in the sixteenth century. 



132 Old Touraine and the Loire Country 

spread that influence which left its impress 
even on the capital of the kingdom itself, not 
only in respect to architectural art, but in 
manners and customs as well. 

Whatever may be the real value of the 
Renaissance as an artistic expression, the dis- 
cussion of it shall have no place here, beyond 
the qualifying statement that what we have 
come to know as the French Renaissance — 
which undeniably grew up from a transplanted 
Italian germ — proved highly tempting to the 
mediaeval builder for all manner of edifi.ces, 
whereas it were better if it had been confined 
to civic and domestic establishments and left 
the church pure in its full-blown Gothic forms. 

Curiously enough, here in Touraine, this is 
just what did happen. The Renaissance in- 
fluence crept into church-building here and 
there — and it is but a short step from the 
'^ gothique rayonnant " to what are recognized 
as well-defined Renaissance features ; but it is 
more particularly in respect to the great cha- 
teaux, and even smaller dwellings, that the 
superimposed Italian details were used. A 
notable illustration of this is seen in the Cathe- 
dral of St. Gatien at Tours. It is very beauti- 
ful and has some admirable Gothic features, 
but there are occasional constructive details, as 



Touraine: Garden Spot of France 133 

well as those for decorative effect alone, which 
are decidedly not good Gothic; but, as they 
are, likewise, not Renaissance, they hence can- 
not be laid to its door, but rather to the archi- 
tect's eccentricity. 

In the smaller wayside churches, such as one 
sees at Cormery, at Cheverny, and at Cour- 
Cheverny, there is scarcely a sign of Renais- 
sance, while their neighbouring chateaux are 
nothing else, both in construction and in deco- 
ration. 

The Chateau de Langeais is, for the most 
part, excellent Gothic, and so is the church 
near by. Loches has distinct and pure Gothic 
details both in its church and its chateau, quite 
apart from the Hotel de Ville and that portion 
of the chateau now used as the Sous-Prefecture, 
which are manifestly Renaissance; hence here 
in Touraine steps were apparently taken to 
keep the style strictly non-ecclesiastical. 

A glance of the eye at the topography of this 
fair province stamps it at once as something 
quite different from any other traversed by the 
Loire. Two of the great '^ routes nationales " 
cross it, the one via Orleans, leading to Nantes, 
and the other via Chartres, going to Bordeaux. 
It is crossed and recrossed by innumerable 
* * routes secondaires, " " departementales, ' ' 



134 Old Touraine and the Loire Country 

" vicinales " and " particulieres, " second to 
none of their respective classes in other coun- 
tries, for assuredly the roads of France are 
the best in the world. Many of these great 
ways of communication replaced the ancient 
Roman roads, which were the pioneers of the 
magnificent roadways of the France of to-day. 

Almost invariably Touraine is flat or rolling, 
its highest elevation above the sea being but a 
hundred and forty-six metres, scarce four hun- 
dred and fifty feet, a fact which accounts also 
for the gentle flow of the Loire through these 
parts. 

All the fruits of the southland are found 
here, the olive alone excepted. Mortality, it is 
said, and proved by figures, is lower than in 
any other part of France, and for this reason 
many dwellers in the large cities, if they may 
not all have a mediaeval chateau, have at least 
a villa, far away from '^ the madding crowd," 
and yet within four hours ' travel of the capital 
itself. 

Touraine, properly speaking, has no natural 
frontiers, as it is not enclosed by rivers or 
mountains. It is, however, divided by the 
Loire into two distinct regions, the Meridionale 
and the Septentrionale ; but the dress, the 
physiognomy, the language, and the predilec- 



134 Old Touraine and the Loire Country 

"' vicinales " and " particulieres, " second to 
none of their respective classes in other coun- 
tries, for assuredly the roads of France are 
the best in the world. Many of these great 
ways of communication replaced the ancient 
Roman roads, which were the pioneers of the 
magnificent roadways of the France of to-day. 
Almost invariably Touraine is flat or rolling, 
its highest elevation above the sea being but a 
hundred and forty-six metres, scarce four hun- 
dred and fifty feet, a fact which accounts also 
for the gentle flow of the Loire through these 

parts. T^L T ' ' T" ' 

All the iruits of me southland are found 
here, the olive alone excepted. Mortality, it is 
said, and proved by figures, is lower than in 
any other part of France, and for this reason 
many dwellers in the large cities, if they may 
not all have a medigpval chateau, have at least 
a villa, far away from '' the madding crowd," 
and yet within four hours ' travel of the capital 
itself. 

Touraine, properly speaking, has no natural 
frontiers, as it is not enclosed by rivers or 
mountains. It is, however, divided by the 
Tjoire into two distinct regions, the Meridionale 
and the Septentrionale ; but the dress, the 
physiognomy, the language, and the predilec- 



\ 





-* .«Wt" ' -•«i','»|NSV"' "WtiTfe"!™"^^ 




Touraine: Garden Spot of France 135 

tions of the people are everywhere the same, 
though the two sections differ somewhat in 
temperament. In the south, the Tourangeau 
is timid and obliging, but more or less en- 
grossed in his affairs; in the north, he is 
proud, egotistical, and a little arrogant, but, 
above all, he likes his ease and comfort, some- 
thing after the manner of ' ' mynheer ' ' of Hol- 
land. 

These are the characteristics which are 
enumerated by Stanislas Bellanger of Tours, 
in "La Touraine Ancienne et Moderne," and 
they are traceable to-day, in every particular, 
to one who knows well the by-paths of the 
region. 

Formerly the peasant was, in his own words, 
'' sous la main de M. le comte/' but, with the 
coming of the eighteenth century, all this was 
changed, and the conditions which, in England, 
succeeded feudalism, are unknown in Touraine, 
as indeed throughout France. 

The two great divisions which nature had 
made of Touraine were further cut up into 
five petits pays; les Varennes, le Veron, la 
Champeigne, la Brenne, and les Creatines ; 
names which exist on some maps to-day, but 
which have lost, in a great measure, their 
former distinction. 



136 Old Touraine and the Loire Country 

There is a good deal to be said in favour of 
the physical and moral characteristics of the 
inhabitants of Touraine. Just as the descend- 
ants of the Phoceans, the original settlers of 
Marseilles, differ from the natives of other 
parts of France, so, too, do the Tourangeaux 
differ from the inhabitants of other provinces. 
The people of Touraine are a mixture of Eo- 
mans, Visigoths, Saracens, Alains, Normans 
and Bretons, Anglais and Gaulois ; but all have 
gradually been influenced by local conditions, 
so that the native of Touraine has become a 
distinct variety all by himself. The delicious- 
ness of the " garden of France " has altered 
him so that he stands to-day as more distinctly 
French than the citizen of Paris itself. 

Touraine, too, has the reputation of being 
that part of France where is spoken the purest 
French. This, perhaps, is as true of the Blai- 
sois, for the local bookseller at Blois will tell 
one with the most dulcet and understandable 
enunciation that it is at Blois that one hears 
the best accent. At any rate, it is something 
found within a charmed circle, of perhaps a 
hundred miles in diameter, that does not find 
its exact counterpart elsewhere. As Seville 
stands for the Spanish tongue, Florence for 



Touraine: Garden Spot of France 137 

the Italian, and Dresden for the German, so 
Tours stands for the French. 

The history of the Loire in Touraine, as is 
the case at Le Puy, at Nevers, at Sancerre, or 
at Orleans, is abundant and vivid, and the 
monuments which line its banks are numerous 
and varied, from the fortress-chateau of Am- 
boise to the Cathedral of St. Gatien at Tours 
with its magnificent bejewelled facade. The 
ruined towers of the castle of Cinq-Mars, with 
its still more ancient Roman '' pile," and the 
feudal chateaux of the countryside are all elo- 
quent, even to-day, in their appeal to all lovers 
of history and romance. 

There are some verses, little knowivin praise 
of the Loire, as it comes through Touraine, 
written by Houdon des Landes, who lived 
near Tours in the eighteenth century. The fol- 
lowing selection expresses their quality well 
and is certainly worthy to rank with the best 
that Balzac wrote in praise of his beloved Tou- 
raine. 

" La Loire enorgueillit ses antiques cit^s, 
Et couronne ses bords de coteaux enchant^s ; 
Dans ses vallons heureux, sur ses rives aim^es, 
Les pr6s ont d6ploy6 leurs robes parfum^es ; 
Le saule humide et souple y lance ses rameaux. 
Ses coteaux sont peupl^s, et le rocher docile 
A rhomme qui le creuse offre un cliampgtre asile. 



138 Old Touraine and the Loire Country 

De notre vieille Gaule, 6 fleuve paternel ! 
Fleuve des doux climats ! la Valliere et Sorel 
Sur tes bords fortunes naquirent, et la gloire 
A I'une dut I'amour, a 1' autre la victoire." 

Again and again Balzac's words echo in 
one's ears from his " Scene de la Vie de Pro- 
vince." The following quotations are typical 
of the whole: 

" The softness of the air, the beauty of the 
climate, all tend to a certain ease of existence 
and simplicity of manner which encourages an 
appreciation of the arts." 

*' Touraine is a land to foster the ambition 
of a Napoleon and the sentiment of a Byron." 

Another writer, A. Beaufort, a publicist of 
the nineteenth century, wrote: 

n rpj^g Tourangeaux resemble the good Adam 
in the garden of Eden. They drink, they eat, 
they sleep and dream, and care not what their 
neighbour may be doing." 

Touraine was indeed, at one time, a veritable 
Eden, though guarded by fortresses, halle- 
hardes, and arquebuses, but not the less an 
Eden for all that. In addition it was a land 
where, in the middle ages, the seigneurs made 
history, almost without a parallel in France or 
elsewhere. 

Touraine, truly enough, was the centre of the 



Touraine: Garden Spot of France 139 

old French monarchy in the perfection of its 
pomp and state; but it is also true that Tou- 
raine knew little of the serious aif airs of kings, 
though some all-important results came from 
events happening within its borders. 

Paris was the law-making centre in the six- 
teenth century, and Touraine knew only the 
domestic life and pleasures of royalty. Eti- 
quette, form, and ceremony were all relaxed, 
or at least greatly modified, and the court spent 
in the country what it had levied in the capital. 

Curiously enough, the monarchs were omni- 
potent and influential here, though immedi- 
ately they quartered themselves in Paris their 
powers waned considerably; indeed, they 
seemed to lose their influence upon ministers 
and vassals alike. 

Louis XIII., it is true, tried to believe that 
Paris was France, — like the Anglo-Saxon tour- 
ists who descend upon it in such great numbers 
to-day, — and built Versailles ; but there was 
never much real glory about its cold and pomp- 
ous walls. 

The fortunes of the old chateaux of Touraine 
have been most varied. Chambord is vast and 
bare, elegant and pompous; Blois, just across 
the border, is a tourist sight of the first rank 
whose salamanders and porcupines have been 



140 Old Touraine and the Loire Country 

well cared for by the paternal French gov- 
ernment. Chanmont, Chenonceaux, Langeais, 
Azay-le-Eideau, and half a dozen others are 
still inhabited, and are gay with the life of 
twentieth-century luxury; Amboise is a pos- 
session of the Orleans family; Loches is, in 
part, given over to the uses of a sous-prefec- 
ture; and Chinon's chateaux are but half -de- 
molished ruins. Besides these there are nu- 
merous smaller residential chateaux of the 
nobility scattered here and there in the Loire 
watershed. 

There have been writers who have sought to 
commiserate with " the poor peasant of Tou- 
raine," as they have been pleased to think of 
him, and have deplored the fact that his sole 
possession was a small piece of ground which 
he and his household cultivated, and that he 
lived in a little whitewashed house, built with 
his own hands, or those of his ancestors. 
Though the peasant of Touraine, as well as of 
other parts of the countryside, works for an 
absurdly small sum, and for considerably less 
than his brother nearer Paris, he sells his prod- 
uce at the nearest market-town for a fair 
price, and preserves a spirit of independence 
which is as valuable as are some of the things 
which are thrust upon him in some other lands 



Touraine: Garden Spot of France 141 



under the guise of benevolent charity, really 
patronage of a most demeaning and un-moral 
sort. At night the Touraine peasant returns 
to his own hearthstone conscious that he is a 
man like all of his fellows, and is not a mere 
atom ground between the upper and nether 
millstones of the landlord and the squire. He 
cooks his " bouillie " over three small sticks 
and retires to rest with the fond hope that on 
the next market-day following the prices of 
eggs, chickens, caulijQowers, or tomatoes may 
be higher. He is the stuff that successful citi- 
zens are made of, and is not to be pitied in the 
least, even though it is only the hundredth man 
of his community who ever does rise to more 
wealth than a mere competency. 

Touraine, rightly enough, has been called the 
garden of France, but it is more than that, 
much more; it is a warm, soft land where all 
products of the soil take on almost a subtrop- 
ical luxuriance. Besides the great valley of the 
Loire, there are the valleys of the tributaries 
which run into it, in Touraine and the imme- 
diate neighbourhood, all of which are fertile 
as only a river-bottom can be. It is true that 
there are numerous formerly arid and sandy 
plateaux, quite tinlike the abundant plains of 
La Beauce, though to-day, by care and skill, 



142 Old Touraine and the Loire Country 

they have been made to rival the rest of the 
region in productiveness. 

The Departement d'Indre et Loire is the 
richest agricultural region in all France so far 
as the variety and abundance of its product 
goes, rivalling in every way the opulence of 
the Burgundian hillsides. Above all, Touraine 
stands at the head of the vine-culture of all the 
Loire valley, the territoire vinicole lapping 
over into Anjou, where are produced the cele- 
brated vins hlancs of Saumur. 

The vineyard workers of Touraine, in the 
neighbourhood of Loches, have clung closely 
to ancient customs, almost, one may say, to the 
destruction of the industry, though of late new 
methods have set in, and, since the blight now 
some years gone by, a new prosperity has come. 

The day worker, who cares for the vines and 
superintends the picking of the grapes by the 
womenfolk and the children, works for two 
francs fifty centimes per day; but he invari- 
ably carries with him to the scene of his labours 
a couple of cutlets from a young and juicy 
hrebis, or even a poulet roti, so one may judge 
from this that his pay is ample for his needs 
in this land of plenty. 

In the morning he takes his bowl of soup and 
a cup of white wine, and of course huge hunks 




The Vintage in Tourainc 



Touraine: Garden Spot of France 143 

of bread, and finally coffee, and on each Sun- 
day he has his roti a la maison. All this demon- 
strates the fact that the French peasant is more 
of a meat eater in these parts than he is com- 
monly thought to be. 

Touraine has no peculiar beauties to offer 
the visitor; there is nothing outre about it to 
interest one; but, rather, it wins by sheer 
charm alone, or perhaps a combination of 
charms and excellencies makes it so truly a 
delectable land. 

The Tourangeaux themselves will tell you, 
when speaking of Eabelais and Balzac, that it 
is the land of '' haute graisse, feconde et spiri- 
tuelle/' It is all this, and, besides its spiritu- 
elle components, it will supply some very real 
and substantial comforts. It is the Eden of the 
gourmandiser of such delicacies as truffes, 
rilettes, and above all, pruneaux, which you get 
in one form or another at nearly every meal. 
Most of the good things of life await one here 
in abundance, with kitchen-gardens and vine- 
yards at every one's back door. Truly Tou- 
raine is a land of good living. 

Life runs its course in Touraine, '' facile 
et 'bonne," without any extremes of joy or sor- 
row, without chimerical desires or infinite de- 
spair, and the agreeable sensations of life pre- 



144 Old Touraine and the Loire Country 

dominate, — the first essential to real happi- 
ness. 

Some one has said, and certainly not with- 
out reason, that every Frenchman has a touch 
of Rabelais and of Voltaire in his make-up. 
This is probably true, for France has never 
been swept by a wave of puritanism such as 
has been manifest in most other countries, and 
le gros rire is still the national philosophy. 

In a former day a hearty laugh, or at least 
an amused cynicism, diverted the mind of the 
martyr from threatened torture and even vio- 
lent death. Brinvilliers laughed at those who 
were to torture her to death, and De la Barre 
and Danton cracked jokes and improvised puns 
upon the very edge of their untimely graves. 

Touraine has the reputation of being a won- 
derfully productive field for the book collector, 
though with books, like many other treasures 
of a past time, the day has passed when one 
may " pick up " for two sous a MS. worth 
as many thousands of francs ; but still bargains 
are even now found, and if one wants great 
calf-covered tomes, filled with fine old engrav- 
ings, bearing on the local history of the pays, 
he can generally find them at all prices here in 
old Touraine. 

There was a more or less apocryphal story 



Touraine: Garden Spot of France 145 

told us and the landlady of our inn concerning 
a find which a guest had come upon in a little 
roadside hamlet at which he chanced to stop. 
He was one of those omnipresent commis voy- 
ageurs who thread the French provinces up 
and down, as no other country in the world is 
'' travelled " or '' drummed." He was the 
representative for a brandy shipper, one of 
those substantial houses of the cognac region 
whose product is mostly sold only in France; 
but this fact need not necessarily put the indi- 
vidual very far down in the social scale. In- 
deed, he was a most amiable and cultivated 
person. 

Our fellow traveller had come to a village 
where all the available accommodations of the 
solitary inn were already engaged; therefore 
he was obliged to put up with a room in the 
town, which the landlord hunted out for him. 
Eepairing to his room without any thought save 
that of sleep, the traveller woke the next morn- 
ing to find the sun streaming through the 
opaqueness of a brilliantly coloured window. 
Not stained glass here, surely, thought the 
stranger, for his lodging was a most humble 
one. It proved to be not glass at all ; merely 
four great vellum leaves, taken from some an- 
cient tome and stuck into the window-framing 



146 Old Touraine and the Loire Country 

where the glass ought to have been. Daylight 
was filtering dimly through the rich colouring, 
and it took but a moment to become convinced 
that the sheets were something rare and valu- 
able. He learned that the pages were from an 
old Latin MS., and that the occupant of the lit- 
tle dwelling had used '' the paper" in the place 
of the glass which had long since disappeared. 
The vellum and its illuminations had stood the 
weather well, though somewhat dimmed in com- 
parison with the brilliancy of the remaining 
folios, which were found below-stairs. There 
were in all some eighty pages, which were pur- 
chased for a modest forty sous, and everybody 
satisfied. 

The volume had originally been found by 
the father of the old dame who then had pos- 
session of it in an old chateau in revolutionary 
times. Whether her honoured parent was a 
pillager or a protector did not come out, but 
for all these years the possession of this fine 
work meant no more to this Tourangelle than 
a supply of '' paper " for stopping up broken 
window-panes. 

* ' She parted readily enough with the remain- 
ing leaves," said our Frenchman, '^ but noth- 
ing would induce her to remove those which 
filled the window." '^ No, we have no more 



Touraine: Garden Spot of France 147 

glass, and these have answered quite well for 
a long time now," she said. And such is the 
simplicity of the French provincial, even to-day 
— sometimes. 



CHAPTEE VII. 

AMBOISE 

As one approaches Amboise, he leaves the 
comparatively insalubrious plain of the So- 
logne and the Blaisois and enters Touraine. 

Amboise! What history has been made 
there; what a wealth of action its memories 
recall, and what splendour, gaiety, and sadness 
its walls have held! An entire book might be 
written about the scenes which took place under 
its roof. 

To-day most travellers are content to rush 
over its apartments, gaze at its great round 
tower, view the Loire, which is here quite at 
its best, from the battlements, and, after a brief 
admiration of the wonderfully sculptured por- 
tal of its chapel, make their way to Chenon- 
ceaux, or to the gay little metropolis of Tours. 

No matter whither one turns his steps from 
Amboise, he will not soon forget this great for- 
tress-chateau and the memories of the petite 
hande of blondes and brunettes who followed 
in the wake of Frangois Premier. 

148 




Chateau d'Amboise 



1 



Amboise 149 

Here, and at Blois, the recollections of this 
little band are strong in the minds of students 
of romance and history. Some one has said 
that along the corridors of Amboise one still 
may meet the wraiths of those who in former 
days went airily from one pleasure to another, 
but this of course depends upon the mood and 
sentiment of the visitor. 

Amboise has a very good imitation of the 
climate of the south, and the glitter of the Loire 
at midday in June is about as torrid a picture 
as one can paint in a northern clime. It is not 
that it is so very hot in degree, but that the 
lack of shade-trees along its quays gives Am- 
boise a shimmering resemblance to a much 
warmer place than it really is. The Loire is 
none too ample here, and frets its way, as it 
does through most of its lower course, through 
banks of sand and pebbles in a more or less 
vain effort to look cool. 

Amboise is old, for, under the name of Am- 
batia, it existed in the fourth century, at which 
epoch St. Martin, the patron of Tours, threw 
down a pagan pyramidal temple here and es- 
tablished Christianity; and Clovis and Alaric 
held their celebrated meeting on the He St. 
Jean in 496. It was not long after this, ac- 
cording to the ancient writers, that some sort 



160 Old Touraine and the Loire Country 

of a fortified chateau took form here. Louis- 
le-Begue gave Amboise to the Counts of Anjou, 
and Hughes united the two independent sei- 
gneuries of the chateau and the bourg. After 
the Counts of Anjou succeeded the Counts of 
Berry, Charles VII., by appropriation, confis- 
cation, seizure, or whatever you please to call 
it, — history is vague as to the real motive, — 
united Amboise to the possessions of the Crown 
in 1434. Louis XI. lived for a time at this 
strong fortress-chateau, before he turned his 
affections so devotedly to Plessis-les-Tours. 
Charles VIII. was born and died here, and it 
was he who added the Renaissance details, or 
at least the first of them, upon his return from 
Italy. Indeed, it is to him and to the nobles 
who followed in his train during his Italian 
travels that the introduction of the Benaissance 
into France is commonly attributed. 

It was at Amboise that Charles VIII., forget- 
ful of the miseries of his Italian campaign, set 
about affairs of state with a renewed will and 
vigour. He was personally superintending 
some alterations in the old castle walls, and 
instructing the workmen whom he brought 
from Italy with him as to just how far they 
might introduce those details which the world 
has come to know as Renaissance, when, in 



Amboise 151 

passing beneath a low overhanging beam, he 
struck his head so violently that he expired 
almost immediately (April 17, 1498). 

Louis XII., the superstitious, lived here for 
some time, and here occurred some of the most 
important events in the life of the great Fran- 
gois, the real popularizer of the new architec- 
tural Eenaissance. 

It was in the old castle of Amboise, the early 
home of Louis XII., that his appointed succes- 
sor, his son-in-law and second cousin, Frangois, 
was brought up. Here he was educated by his 
mother, Louise de Savoie, Duchesse d'Angou- 
leme, together with that bright and shining 
light, that Marguerite who was known as the 
'' Pearl of the Valois," poetess, artist, and 
court intriguer. Here the household formed 
what in the early days Frangois himself was 
pleased to call a '* trinity of love." 

Throughout the structure may yet be seen 
the suggestions of Francois's artistic instincts, 
traced in the window-framings of the fa§ade, 
in the interior decorations of the long gallery, 
and on the terrace hanging high above the 
Loire. 

In the park and in the surrounding forest 
Frangois and his sister Marguerite passed 
many happy days of their childhood. Mar- 



152 Old Touraine and the Loire Country 

guerite, who had already become known as the 
" tenth muse," had already thought out her 
" Heptameron," whilst Frangois tried his 
prentice hand at love-rhyming, an expression 
of sentiment which at a later period took the 
form of avowals in person to his favourites. 

One recalls those stanzas to the memory of 
Agnes Sorel, beginning: 

«' Gentille Agnes plus de loz tu m^rite, 
La cause 6tait de France recouvrir ; 
Que ce que pent dedans un cloitre ouvrir 
Close nonnaine ? ou bien d6vot hermits ? " 

Frangois was more than a lover of the beau- 
tiful. His appreciation of architectural art 
amounted almost to a passion, and one might 
well claim him as a member of the architectural 
guild, although, in truth, he was nothing more 
than a generous patron of the craftsmen of his 
day. 

FrauQois was the real father of the French 
Eenaissance, the more splendid flower which 
grew from the Italian stalk. He had no liking 
for the Van Eycks and Holbeins of the Dutch 
school, reserving his favour for the frankly 
languid masters from the south. He brought 
from Italy Cellini, Primaticcio, and the great 
Leonardo, who it is said had a hand in that 



Amboise 153 

wonderful shell-like spiral stairway in the cha- 
teau at Blois. 

By just what means Da Vinci was inveigled 
from Italy will probably never be known. The 
art-loving Francois visited Milan, and among 
its curiosities was shown the even then cele- 
brated '' Last Supper " of Leonardo. The 
next we know is that, " Frangois repasse les 
Alpes ayant avec lui Mon Sieur Lyonard, son 
peintre." Leonardo was given a pension of 
seven ecus de France per year and a residence 
near Amboise. Vasari recounts very precisely 
how Leonardo expired in the arms of his kingly 
patron at Amboise, but on the other hand, the 
court chronicles have said that Frangois was 
at St. Germain on that day. Be this as it may, 
the intimacy was a close one, and we may be 
sure that Fran§ois felt keenly the demise of this 
most celebrated painter of his court. 

It was during those early idyllic days at 
Amboise that the character of Frangois was 
formed, and the marvel is that the noble and 
endearing qualities did not exceed the baser 
ones. To be sure his after lot was hard, and 
his real and fancied troubles many, and they 
were not made the less easy to bear because 
of his numerous female advisers. 

In his youth at Amboise his passions still 



154 Old Touraine and the Loire Country 

slumbered, but when they did awaken, they 
burst forth with an unquenchable fury. Mean- 
time he was working off any excess of imag- 
ination by boar-hunts and falconry in the neigh- 
bouring forest of Chanteloup, and had more 
than one hand-to-hand affray with resentful 
citizens of the town, when he encroached upon 
what they considered their traditional pre- 
serves. So he grew to man's estate, but the 
life that he lived in his youth under the kingly 
roof of the chateau at Amboise gave him the 
benefits of all the loyalty which his fellows 
knew, and it helped him carry out the ideas 
which were bequeathed to him by his uncle. 

It was at a sitting of the court at Amboise, 
when FrauQois was still under his mother's 
wing, — at the age of twenty only, — that the 
Bourbon affair finally came to its head. Many 
notables were mixed up in it as partisans of 
the ungrateful and ambitious Bourbon, Charles 
de Montpensier, Connetable de France. It was 
an office only next in power to that of the sov- 
ereign himself, and one which had been allowed 
to die out in the reign of Louis XI. The final 
outcome of it all was that Frangois became a 
prisoner at Pavia, through the treachery of the 
Connetable and his followers, who went over 



AmTboise 155 

en masse to Frangois's rival, Charles V., who, 
as Charles II., was King of Spain. 

Of the subsequent meeting with the Emperor 
Charles on French soil, Frangois said to the 
Duchesse d'^fitampes: ''It is with regret that 
I leave you to meet the emperor at Amboise 
on the Loire. ' ' And he added : ' ' You will fol- 
low me with the queen." His queen at this 
time was poor Eleanor of Portugal, herself a 
Spanish princess, Claude of France, his first 
wife, having died. " These two," says Bran- 
tome, " were the only virtuous women of his 
household. ' ' 

The Emperor Charles was visibly affected 
by the meeting, though, it is true, he had no 
love for his old enemy, Frangois. Perhaps it 
was on account of the duchess, for whom 
Frangois had put aside Diane. At any rate, 
the emperor was gallant enough to say to her : 
"It is only in France that I have seen such 
a perfection of elegance and beauty. My 
brother, your king, should be the envy of all 
the sovereigns of Europe. Had I such a cap- 
tive at my palace in Madrid, there were no 
ransom that I would accept for her." 

Frangois cared not for the lonely Spanish 
princess whom he had made his queen; but 
he was somewhat susceptible to the charms of 



156 Old Touraine and the Loire Country 

his daughter-in-law, Catherine de Medici, the 
wife of his son Henri, who, when at Amboise,. 
was his ever ready companion in the chase. 

Frangois was inordinately fond of the hunt, 
and made of it a most strenuous pastime, full 
of danger and of hard riding in search of the 
boar and the wolf, which abounded in the thick 
underwood in the neighbourhood. One won- 
ders where they, or, rather, their descendants, 
have disappeared, since nought in these days 
but a frightened hare, a partridge, or perhaps 
a timid deer ever crosses one's path, as he 
makes his way by the smooth roads which cross 
and recross the forest behind Amboise. 

When Frangois II. was sixteen he became 
the nominal king of France. To Amboise he 
and his young bride came, having been brought 
thither from Blois, for fear of the Huguenot 
rising. The court settled itself forthwith at 
Amboise, where the majestic feudal castle piled 
itself high up above the broad, limpid Loire, 
feeling comparatively secure within the protec- 
tion of its walls. Here the Loire had widened 
to the pretensions of a lake, the river being 
spanned by a bridge, which crossed it by the 
help of the island, as it does to-day. 

Over this old stone bridge the court ap- 
proached the castle, the retinue brilliant with 



Amboise , 157 

all the trappings of a luxurious age, archers, 
pages, and men-at-arms. The king and his 
new-found bride, the winsome Mary Stuart, 
rode well in the van. In their train were Cath- 
erine, the " queen-mother " of three kings, the 
Cardinal de Lorraine, the Due de Guise, the 
Due de Nemours, and a vast multitude of gay 
retainers, who were moved about from place 
to place like pawns upon the chess-board, and 
with about as much consideration. 

The gentle Mary Stuart, born in 1542, at 
Linlithgow, in stern Caledonia, of a French 
mother, — Marie de Lorraine, — was doomed 
to misfortune, for her father, the noble 
James V., prophesied upon his death-bed that 
the dynasty would end with his daughter. 

At the tender age of five Mary was sent to 
France and placed in a convent. Her education 
was afterward continued at court under the 
direction of her uncle, the Cardinal de Lor- 
raine. By ten she had become well versed in 
French, Latin, and Italian, and at one time, 
according to Brantome, she gave a discourse 
on literature and the liberal arts — so flourish- 
ing at the time — before the king and his court. 
Eonsard was her tutor in versification, which 
became one of her favourite pursuits. 

Mary Stuart's charms were many. She was 



158 Old Touraine and the Loire Country 

tall and finely formed, with auburn hair shin- 
ing like an aureole above her intellectual fore- 
head, and with a skin of such dazzling white- 
ness — a trite saying, but one which is used 
by Brantome — ' ' that it outrivalled the white- 
ness of her veil." 

In the spring of 1558, when she was but six- 
teen, Mary Stuart was married to the Dauphin, 
the weak, sickly Frangois II., himself but a 
youth. He was, however, sincerely and deeply 
fond of his young wife. 

Unexpectedly, through the death of Henri II. 
at the hands of Montgomery at that ever de- 
batable tournament, Frangois II. ascended the 
throne of France, and Mary Stuart saw herself 
exalted to the dizzy height which she had not 
so soon expected. She became the queen of two 
kingdoms, and, had the future been more pro- 
pitious, the whole map of Europe might have 
been changed. 

Disease had marked the unstable Francois 
for its own, and within a year he passed from 
the throne to the grave, leaving his young 
queen a widow and an orphan. 

Shortly afterward '^ la reine blanche " re- 
turned to her native Scotland, bidding France 
that long, last, sad adieu so often quoted : 



Amboise 159 

" Farewell, beloved France, to thee 1 

Best native land, 

The cherished strand 
That nursed my tender infancy ! 
Farewell my childhood's happy day ! 
The bark, which bears me thus away, 

Bears but the poorer moiety hence, 
The nobler half remains with thee, 

I leave it to thy confidence. 
But to remind thee still of me 1 " 

The young sovereigns had had a most stately 
suite of apartments prepared for them at Am- 
boise, the lofty windows reaching from floor 
to ceiling and overlooking the river and the 
vast terrace where was so soon to be enacted 
that bloody drama to which they were to be 
made unwilling witnesses. 

This gallery was wainscoted with old oak 
and hung with rich leathers, and the lofty ceil- 
ing was emblazoned with heraldic emblems and 
monograms, as was the fashion of the day. 
Brocades and tapestries, set in great gold 
frames, lined the walls, and, in a boudoir or 
retiring-room beyond, still definitely to be rec- 
ognized, was a remarkable series of embroid- 
ered wall decorations, a tapestry of flowers 
and fruits with an arabesque border of white 
and gold, truly a queenly apartment, and one 
that well became the luxurious and dainty 



160 Old Touraine and the Loire Country 

Mary, who came from Scotland to marry the 
youthful Frangois. 

Mary Stuart knew little at the time as to 
why they had so suddenly removed from Blois, 
but Frangois soon told her, something after 
this wise : ' ' Our mother, ' ' said he, ' ' is deeply 
concerned with affairs of state. There is some 
conspiracy against her and your uncles, the 
Guises." 

' ' Tell me, ' ' she demanded, * ' concerning this 
dreadful conspiracy." 

<' Were you not suspicious," he asked, quer- 
ulously, '^ when we left for Amboise so sud- 
denly? " 

" Ah, non, mon Frangois, methought that we 
came here to hold a jousting tourney and to 
hunt in the forest. ..." 

'' Well, at any rate, we are secure here from 
Turk, or Jew, or Huguenot, my queen," re- 
plied the king. 

Within a short space a council was called in 
the great hall of Amboise, which the Huguenot 
chiefs, Conde, Coligny, the Cardinal de Cha- 
tillon, — who appears to have been a sort of a 
religious renegade, — were requested to attend. 
A conciliatory edict was to be prepared, and 
signed by the king, as a measure for gaining 



Amboise 161 

time and learning further the plans of the con- 
spirators. 

This edict ultimately was signed, but it was 
in force but a short time and was a subterfuge 
which the youthful king deep in his heart — 
and he publicly avowed the fact — deeply re- 
sented. Furthermore it did practically noth- 
ing toward quelling the conspiracy. 

Through the plains of Touraine and over 
the hills from Anjou the conspirators came in 
straggling bands, to rendezvous for a great 
coup de main at Amboise. They halted at 
farms and hid in vineyards, but the royalists 
were on the watch and one after another the 
wandering bands were captured and held for 
a bloody public massacre when the time should 
become ripe. In all, two thousand or more 
were captured, including Jean Barri de la 
Renaudie. This man was the leader, but he 
was merely a bold adventurer, seeking his own 
advantage, and caring little what cause em- 
ployed his peculiar talents. This was his last 
affair, however, for his corpse soon hung in 
chains from Amboise 's bridge. Conde, Coli- 
gny, and the other Calvinists soon learned that 
the edict was not worth the paper on which it 
was written. 

After the two thousand had been dispersed 



162 Old Touraine and the Loire Country 

or captured tke * * queen-mother ' ' threw off 
the mask. She led the trembling child-king 
and queen toward the southern terrace, where, 
close beneath the windows of the chateau, was 
built a scaffold, covered with black cloth, be- 
fore which stood the executioner clothed in 
scarlet. The prisoners were ranged by hun- 
dreds along the outer rampart, guarded by 
archers and musketeers. The windows of the 
royal apartment were open and here the com- 
pany placed themselves to witness the butchery 
to follow. 

Speechless with horror sat the young king 
and queen, until finally, as another batch of 
mutilated corpses were thrown into the river 
below, the young queen swooned. 

'' My mother," said Frangois, '^ I, too, am 
overcome by this horrible sight. I crave your 
Highness 's permission to retire; the blood of 
my subjects, even of my enemies, is too hor- 
rible to contemplate." 

'' My son," said the bloodthirsty Catherine, 
*' I command you to stay. Due de Guise, sup- 
port your niece, the Queen of France. Teach 
her her duty as a sovereign. She must learn 
how to govern those hardy Scots of hers." 

It was on the very terraced platform on 
which one walks to-day that, between two ranks 



Amboise 163 

of hallebardiers and arquebusiers, moved that 
long line of bareheaded and bowed men whose 
prayers went up to heaven while they awaited 
the fate of the gallows. 

Either the cord or the sword-blade quickly 
accounted for the lives of this multitude, and 
their blood flowed in rivulets, while above in 
the gallery the willing and unwilling onlookers 
were gay with laughter or dumb with sadness. 

When all this horrible murdering was over 
the Loire was literally a reeking mass of 
corpses, if we are to believe the records of the 
time. The chief conspirators were hung in 
chains from the castle walls, or from the 
bridge, and the balustrades which overhang 
the street, which to-day flanks the Loire be- 
neath the castle walls, were filled with a ribald 
crew of jeering partisans who knew little and 
cared less for religion of any sort. 

Some days after the execution of the Calvin- 
ists the ** Protestant poet " and historian 
passed through the royal city with his pre- 
cepteur and his father, and was shown the rows 
of heads planted upon pikes, which decorated 
the castle walls, and thereupon vowed, if not 
to avenge, at least to perpetuate the infamy 
in prose and verse, and this he did most effec- 
tually. 



164 Old Touraine and the Loire Country 

An odorous garden of roses, lilacs, honey- 
suckle, and hawthorn framed the joyous archi- 
tecture of the chateau, then as now, in ador- 
able fashion; but it could not purify the mal- 
odorous reputation which it had received until 
the domain was ceded by Louis XIV. to the 
Due de Penthievre and made a duche-pairie. 

It would be possible to say much more, but 
this should suffice to stamp indelibly the fact 
that Touraine, in general, and the chateau of 
Amboise, in particular, cradled as much of the 
thought and action of the monarchy in the fif- 
teenth and sixteenth centuries as did the capi- 
tal itself. At any rate the memory of it all is 
so vivid, and the tangible monuments of the 
splendour and intrigue of the court of those 
days are so very numerous and magnificent, 
that one could not forget the parts they played 
— once having seen them — if he would. 

After the assassination of the Due de Guise 
at Blois, Amboise became a prison of state, 
where were confined the Cardinal de Bourbon 
and Cesar de Vendome (the sons of Henri IV. 
and Gabrielle d'Estrees), also Fouquet and 
Lauzun. In 1762 the chateau was given by 
Louis XV. to the Due de Choiseul, and the great 
Napoleon turned it over to his ancient col- 
league, Roger Ducos, who apparently cared 




Co 



-Si 
-Si 



I' 



Amboise 165 

little for its beauties or associations, for he 
mutilated it outrageously. 

In later times the history of the chateau 
and its dependencies has been more prosaic. 
The Emir Abd-el-Kader was imprisoned here 
in 1852, and Louis Napoleon stayed for a time 
within its walls upon his return from the 
south. To-day it belongs to the family of Or- 
leans, to whom it was given by the National 
Assembly in 1872, and has become a house of 
retreat for military veterans. This is due to 
the generosity of the Due d'Aumale into whose 
hands it has since passed. The restoration 
which has been carried on has made of Am- 
boise an ideal reproduction of what it once was, 
and in every way it is one of the most splendid 
and famous chateaux of its kind, though by no 
means as lovable as the residential chateaux 
of Chenonceaux or Langeais. 

The Chapelle de St. Hubert, which was re- 
stored by Louis Philippe, is the chief artistic 
attraction of Amboise; a bijou of full-blown 
G^othic. It is a veritable architectural joy of 
the period of Charles VIIL, to whom its erec- 
tion was due. Its portal has an adorable bas- 
relief, representing ** La Chasse de St. Hu- 
bert," and showing St. Hubert, St. Christo- 
pher, and St. Anthony, while above, in the tym- 



166 Old Touraine and the Loire Country 

panum, are effigies of the Virgin, of Charles 
VIII., and of Anne de Bretagne. The sculp- 
ture is, however, comparatively modern, but it 
embellishes a shrine worthy in every way, for 
there repose the bones of Leonardo da Vinci. 
Formerly Da Vinci 's remains had rested in the 
chapel of the chateau itself, dedicated to St. 
Florentin. 

Often the Chapelle de St. Hubert has been 
confounded with that described by Scott in 
" Quentin Durward," but it is manifestly not 
the same, as that was located in Tours or near 
there, and his very words describe the archi- 
tecture as "of the rudest and meanest kind," 
which this is not. Over the arched doorway 
of the chapel at Tours there was, however, a 
*' statue of St. Hubert with a bugle-horn 
around his neck and a leash of greyhounds at 
his feet," which may have been an early sug- 
gestion of the later work which was under- 
taken at Amboise. 

All vocations came to have their protecting 
saints in the middle ages, and, since " la 
chasse " was the great recreation of so many, 
distinction was bestowed upon Hubert as being 
one of the most devout. The legend is suffi- 
ciently familiar not to need recounting here, 
and, anyway, the story is plainly told in this 



Amboise 167 

sculptured panel over the portal of the chapel 
at Amboise. 

In this Chapel of St. Hubert was formerly 
held ^' that which was called a hunting-mass. 
The office was only used before the noble and 
powerful, who, while assisting at the solemnity, 
were usually impatient to commence their 
favourite sport." 

The ancient Salle des Gardes of the chateau, 
with the windows giving on the balcony over- 
looking the river, became later the Logis du 
Eoi. From this great chamber one passes on to 
the terrace near the foot of the Grosse Tour, 
called the Tour des Minimes. It is this tower 
which contains the '' escalier des voitures." 
The entrance is through an elegant portico 
leading to the upper stories. Above another 
portico, leading from the terrace to the garden, 
is to be seen the emblem of Louis XII., the por- 
cupine, so common at Blois. 

In the fosse, which still remains on the gar- 
den side, was the universally installed jeu-de- 
paume, a favourite amusement throughout the 
courts of Europe in the middle ages. 

At the base of the chateau are clustered nu- 
merous old houses of the sixteenth century, 
but on the river-front these have been replaced 



168 Old Touraine and the Loire Country 

with pretentious houses, cafes, automobile ' ga- 
rages, and other modern buildings. 

Near the Quai des Violettes are a series of 
subterranean chambers known as the Greniers 
de Cesar, dating from the sixteenth century. 

Even at this late day one can almost picture 
the great characters in the drama of other 




Cipher of Anne de Bretagne, Hotel de Ville, Amboise 



times who stalked majestically through the 
apartments, and over the very flagstones of the 
courts and terraces which one treads to-day; 
Catherine de Medici with her ruffs and velvets ; 
Henri de Guise with all his wiles; Conde the 
proud ; the second Francois, youthful but wise ; 
his girl queen, loving and sad; and myriads 
more of all ranks and of all shades of morality, 
— all resplendent in the velvets and gold of 
the costume of their time. 



Amboise 169 

Near the chateau is the Clos Luce, a Gothic 
habitation in whose oratory died Leonardo da 
Vinci, on May 2, 1519. 

Immediately back of the chateau is the Foret 
d 'Amboise, the scene of many gay hunting 
parties when the court was here or at Chenon- 
ceaux, which one reaches by traversing the 
forest route. On the edge of this forest is 
Chanteloup, remembered by most folk on ac- 
count of its atrocious Chinese-like pagoda, 
built of the debris of the Chateau de la Bour- 
daisiere, by the Due de Choiseul, in memory 
of the attentions he received from the nobles 
and bourgeois of the ville upon the fall of his 
ministry and his disgrace at the hands of 
Louis XV. and La Du Barry. It is a curious 
form to be chosen when one had such beauti- 
ful examples of architectural art near by, only 
equalled, perhaps, in atrociousness by the 
*' Royal Pavilion " of England's George IV. 

La Bourdaisiere, near Amboise, of which 
only the site remains, if not one of the chief 
tourist attractions of the chateau country, has 
at least a sentimental interest of abounding 
importance for all who recall the details of the 
life of La Belle Gabrielle." 

Here in Touraine Gabrielle d'Estrees was 
born in 1565. She was twenty-six years old 



170 Old Touraine and the Loire Country 

when Henri IV. first saw her in the chateau 
of her father at Coeuvres. So charmed was he 
with her graces that he made her his maitresse 
forthwith, though the old court-life chronicles 
of the day state that she already possessed 
something more than the admiration of Sebas- 
tian Zamet, the celebrated financier. 



CHAPTER VIII. 

CHENONCEAUX 

" The castle of Chenonceaux is a fine place on the river 
Cher, in a fine and pleasant country." 

Francois Premier. 
" The castle of Chenonceaux is one of the best and most 

beautiful of our kingdom." 

Henri II. 

The average visitor will come prepared to 
worship and admire a chateau so praised by 
two luxury-loving Kings of France. 

Chenonceaux is noted chiefly for its chateau, 
but the little village itself is charming. The 
houses of the village are not very new, nor 
very old, but the one long street is most at- 
tractive throughout its length, and the whole 
atmosphere of the place, from September to 
December, is odorous with the perfume of red- 
purple grapes. The vintage is not the equal 
of that of the Bordeaux region, perhaps, nor 
of Chinon, nor Saumur; but the vin du pays 
of the Cher and the Loire, around Tours, is not 
to be despised. 

171 



172 Old Touraine and the Loire Country 

Most tourists come to Chenonceaux by train 
from Tours; others drive over from Amboise, 
and yet others come by bicycle or automobile. 
They are not as yet so numerous as might be 
expected, and accordingly here, as elsewhere 
in Touraine, every facility is given for visiting 
the chateau and its park. 

If you do not hurry off at once to worship 
at the abode of the fascinating Diane, one of 
the brightest ornaments of the court of Fran- 
Qois Premier and his son Henri, you will enjoy 
your dinner at the Hotel du Bon Laboureur, 
though most likely it will be a solitary one, and 
you will be put to bed in a great chamber over- 
looking the park, through which peep, in the 
moonlight, the turrets of the chateau, and you 
may hear the purling of the waters of the Cher 
as it flows below the walls. 

Jean Jacques Eousseau, like Francois I., 
called Chenonceaux a beautiful place, and he 
was right; it is all of that and more. Here 
one comes into direct contact with an atmos- 
phere which, if not feudal, or even mediae- 
val, is at least that of several hundred years 
ago. 

Chenonceaux is moored like a ship in the 
middle of the rapidly running Cher, a dozen 
miles or more above where that stream enters 



Chenonceaux l'^3 



the Loire. As a matter of fact, the chateau 
practically bridges the river, which flows under 
its foundations and beneath its drawbridge on 
either side, besides filling the moat with water. 
The general effect is as if the building were 
set in the midst of the stream and formed a 
sort of island chateau. Round about is a gen- 
tle meadow and a great park, which give to 
this turreted architectural gem of Touraine 
a setting which is equalled by no other cha- 
teau. 

What the chateau was in former days we 
can readily imagine, for nothing is changed 
as to the general disposition. Boats came to 
the water-gate, as they still might do if such 
boats still existed, in true, pictorial legendary 
fashion. To-day, the present occupant has 
placed a curiosity on the ornamental waters 
in the shape of a gondola. It is out of keeping 
with the grand fabric of the chateau, and it 
is a pity that it does not cast itself adrift some 
night. What has become of the gondolier, who 
was imported to keep the craft company, no- 
body seems to know. He is certainly not in 
evidence, or, if he is, has transformed himself 
into a groom or a chauffeur. 

The Chateau of Chenonceaux is not a very 
ample structure; not so ample as most photo- 



174 Old Touraine and the Loire Country 

graphs would make it appear. It is not tiny, 
but still it has not the magnificent proportions 
of Blois, of Chambord, or even of Langeais. 
It was more a habitation than it was a for- 
tress, a maison de campagne, as indeed it vir- 
tually became when the Connetable de Mont- 
morency took possession of the structure in 
the name of the king, when its builder, Thomas 
Bohier, the none too astute minister of finances 
in Normandy, came to grief in his affairs. 

Frangois I. came frequently here for " la 
chasse/' and his memory is still kept alive by 
the Chambre Frangois Premier. Frangois held 
possession till his death, when his son made 
it over to the '' admired of two generations," 
Diane de Poitiers. 

Diane's memory will never leave Chenon- 
ceaux. To-day it is perpetuated in the Chambre 
de Diane de Poitiers; but the portrait by 
Leonardo da Vinci, which was supposed to best 
show her charms, has now disappeared from 
the '* long gallery " at the chateau. This por- 
trait was painted at the command of Frangois, 
before Diane transferred her affections to his 
son. 

No one knows when or how Diane de Poitiers 
first came to fascinate Frangois, or how or 
why her power waned. At any rate, at the 



Chenonceaux 175 



time FranQois pardoned her father, the witless 
Comte de St. Vallier, for the treacherous part 
he played in the Bourbon conspiracy, he really 
believed her to be the " brightest ornament of 
a beauty-loving court." 

Certainly, Diane was a powerful factor in the 
politics of her time, though Fran§ois himself 
soon tired of her. Undaunted by this, she 
forthwith set her cap for his son Henri, the 
Due d 'Orleans, and won him, too. Of her 
beauty the present generation is able to 
judge for itself by reason of the three well- 
known and excellent portraits of contemporary 
times. 

Diane's influence over the young Henri was 
absolute. At his death her power was, of 
course, at an end, and Chenonceaux, and all else 
possible, was taken from her by the orders of 
Catherine, the long - suffering wife, who had 
been put aside for the fascinations of the 
charming huntress. 

It must have been some satisfaction, how- 
ever, to Diane, to know that, in his fatal joust 
with Montgomery, Henri really broke his lance 
and met his death in her honour, for the records 
tell that he bore her colours on his lance, be- 
sides her initials set in gold and gems on his 
shield. 



176 Old Touraine and the Loire Country 

Catherine's eagerness to drive Diane from 
the court was so great, that no sooner had her 
spouse fallen — even though he did not actually 
die for some days — than she sent word to 
Diane, '' who sat weeping alone," to instantly 
quit the court; to give up the crown jewels — 
which Henri had somewhat inconsiderately 
given her; and to '^ give up Chenonceaux in 
Touraine," Catherine's Naboth's vineyard, 
which she had so long admired and coveted. 
She had known it as a girl, when she often 
visited it in company with her father-in-law, 
the appreciative but dissolute Frangois, and 
had ever longed to possess it for her own, 
before even her husband, now dead, had given 
it to ' ' that old hag Diane de Poitiers, Duchesse 
de Valentinois. " 

Diane paid no heed to Catherine's com- 
mand. She simply asked: *' Is the king yet 
dead? " 

''No, madame," said the messenger, "but 
his wound is mortal; he cannot live the day." 

' ' Tell the queen, then, ' ' replied Diane, ' ' that 
her reign is not yet come; that I am mistress 
still over her and the kingdom as long as the 
king breathes the breath of life." 

Henri was more or less an equivocal char- 
acter, devoted to Diane, and likewise fond — 



Chenonceaux 



177 



one says it with caution — of Ms wife. He 
caused to be fashioned a monogram (seen at 
Chenonceaux) after this wise: 




supposedly indicating his attachment for Diane 
and his wife alike. The various initials of the 
cipher are in no way involved. Diane returned 
the compliment by decorating an apartment for 
the king, at her Chateau of Anet, with the black 
and white of the Medici arms. 

The Chateau of Chenonceaux, so greatly cov- 
eted by Catherine when she first came to 
France, and when it was in the possession of 
Diane, still remains in all the regal splendour 
of its past. It lies in the lovely valley of the 
Cher, far from the rush and turmoil of cities 
and even the continuous traffic of great thor- 
oughfares, for it is on the road to nowhere 
unless one is journeying cross-country from 
the lower to the upper Loire. This very iso- 
lation resulted in its being one of the few monu- 
ments spared from the furies of the Revolution, 
and, ' ' half-palace and half-chateau, ' ' it glistens 



178 Old Touraine and the Loire Country 

with the purity of its former glory, as pictur- 
esque as ever, with turrets, spires, and roof- 
tops all mellowed with the ages in a most en- 
trancing manner. 

Even to-day one enters the precincts of the 
chateau proper over a drawbridge which spans 
an arm of the Loire, or rather, a moat which 
leads directly from the parent stream. On the 
opposite side are the bridge piers supporting 
five arches, the work of Diane when she was 
the fair chatelaine of the domain. This in- 
genious thought proved to be a most useful and 
artistic addition to the chateau. It formed a 
flagged promenade, lovely in itself, and led to 
the southern bank of the Cher, whence one 
got charming vistas of the turrets and roof- 
tops of the chateau through the trees and the 
leafy avenues which converged upon the struc- 
ture. 

When Catherine came she did not disdain 
to make the best use of Diane's innovation that 
suggested itself to her, which was simply to 
build the " Long Gallery " over the arches of 
this lovely bridge, and so make of it a veritable 
house over the water. A covering was made 
quite as beautiful as the rest of the structure, 
and thus the bridge formed a spacious wing 
of two stories. The first floor — known as the 



•aAfeivi^i.;- ;'._ ,:..^«&;&S!iifflS 




178 Old Touraine and the Loire Country 

with the purity of its former glory, as pictur- 
esque as ever, with turrets, spires, and roof- 
tops all mellowed with the ages in a most en- 
trancing manner. 

Even to-day one enters the precincts of the 
chateau proper over a drawbridge which spans 
an arm of the Loire, or rather, a moat which 
leads directly from the parent stream. On the 
opposite side are the bridge piers supporting 
five arches, the work of Diane when she was 
the fair chatelaine of the domain. This in- 
genious thought proved to be a most useful and 

artistic addi€hme^ M^^Mi^Bkhux^^ formed a 
flagged promenade, lovely in itself, and led to 
the southern bank of the Cher, whence one 
got charraing~-vistas of the turrets and roof- 
tops of tlie chateau through the trees and the 
leafy avenues which converged upon the struc- 
ture. 

When Catherine came she did not disdain 
to make the best use of Diane's innovation that 
suggested itself to her, which was simply to 
build the '' Long Gallery " over the arches of 
this lovely bridge, and so make of it a veritable 
house over the water. A covering was made 
(-iuite as beautiful as the rest of the structure, 
and thus the bridge formed a spacious wing 
of two stories. The first floor — known as the 



Chenonceaux 



179 



' ' Long Gallery ' ' — was intended as a banquet- 
ing-hall, and possessed four great full-length 
windows on either side looking up and down 
stream, from which was seen — and is to-day 




— an outlook as magnificently idyllic as is pos- 
sible to conceive. Jean Goujon had designed 
for the ceiling one of those wonder-works for 
which he was famous, but if the complete plan 
was ever carried out, it has disappeared, for 
only a tiny sketch of the whole scheme remains 
to-day. 



180 Old Touraine and the Loire Country 

Catherine came in the early summer to take 
possession of her long-coveted domain. Being 
a skilful horsewoman, she came on horseback, 
accompanied by a '^ petite hande " of feminine 
charmers destined to wheedle political secrets 
from friends and enemies alike, — a real " es- 
cadron volant de la reine," as it was called by 
a contemporary. 

It was a gallant company that assembled here 
at this time, — the young King Charles IX., 
the Due de Guise, and '' two cardinals mounted 
on mules," — Lorraine, a true Guise, and 
D'Este, newly arrived from Italy, and accom- 
panied by the poet Tasso, wearing a '' gabar- 
dine and a hood of satin." Catherine showed 
the Italian great favour, as was due a country- 
man, but there was another poet among them 
as well, Eonsard, the poet laureate of the time. 
The Due de Guise had followed in the wake 
of Marguerite, unbeknownst to Catherine, who 
frowned down any possibility of an alliance 
between the houses of Valois and Lorraine. 

A great fete and water-masque had been 
arranged by Catherine to take place on the 
Cher, with a banquet to follow in the Long 
Gallery in honour of her arrival at Chenon- 
ceaux. 

When twilight had fallen, torches were ig- 



Chenonceaux 181 



nited and myriads of lights blazed forth from 
the boats on the river and from the windows 
of the chateau. Music and song went forth 
into the night, and all was as gay and lovely 
as a Venetian night's entertainment. The 
hunting-horns echoed through the wooded 
banks, and through the arches above which 
the chateau was built passed great highly 
coloured barges, including a fleet of gondolas 
to remind the queen-mother of her Italian days, 
— the ancestors perhaps of the solitary gon- 
dola which to-day floats idly by the river-bank 
just before the grand entrance to the chateau. 
From parterre and balustrade, and from the 
clipped yews of the ornamental garden, fairy 
lamps burned forth and dwindled away into 
dim infinity, as the long lines of soft light grad- 
ually lost themselves in the forest. It was a 
grand affair and idyllic in its unworldliness. 
One may not see its like to-day, for electric 
lights and " rag-time " music, which mostly 
comprise the attractions of such al fresco pleas- 
ures, will hardly produce the same effect. 

Among the great fetes at Chenonceaux will 
always be recalled that given by the court upon 
the coming of the youthful Frangois II. and 
Mary Stuart, after the horrible massacres at 
Amboise. 



182 Old Touraine and the Loire Country 

All the Renaissance skill of the time was 
employed in the erection of pompous acces- 
sories, triumphal arches, columns, obelisks, and 
altars. There were innumerable tablets also, 
bearing inscriptions in Latin and Greek, — 
which nobody read, — and a fountain which 
bore the following: 

" Au saint bal des dryades, 
A Phoebus, ce grand dieu, 
Atix hnmides nyades, 
J'ai consacr6 ce lieu." 

Of Chenonceaux and its glories what more 
can be said than to quote the following lines 
of the middle ages, which in their quaint old 
French apply to-day as much as ever they did : 

" Basti si magnifiquement 
II est debout, comme un g^ant, 
Dedans le lit de la riviere, 
C'est-a-dire dessus un pont 
Qui porte cent toises de long." 

The part of the edifice which Bohier erected 
in 1515 is that through which the visitor makes 
his entrance, and is built upon the piers of an 
old mill which was destroyed at that time. 

Catherine bequeathed Chenonceaux to the 
wife of Henri III., Louise de Vaudemont, who 
died here in 1601. For a hundred years it still 
belonged to royalty, but in 1730 it was sold to 



Chenonceaux 183 



M. Dupin, who, with his wife, enriched and 
repaired the fabric. They gathered around 
them a company so famous as to be memorable 
in the annals of art and literature. This is 
best shown by the citing of such names as Fon- 
tenelle, Montesquieu, Buffon, Bolingbroke, Vol- 
taire, and Rousseau, all of whom were frequent- 
ers of the establishment, the latter being 
charged with the education of the only son of 
M. and Madame Dupin. 

Considering Eousseau's once proud position 
among his contemporaries, and the favour with 
which he was received by the nobility, it is 
somewhat surprising that his struggle for life 
was so hard. The Marquise de Crequy wrote 
in her " Souvenirs: " " Eousseau left behind 
him his Memoires, which I think for the sake of 
his memory and fame ought to be much cur- 
tailed. ' ' And undoubtedly she was right. Rous- 
seau wrote in his " Confessions: " "In 1747 
we went to spend the autumn in Touraine, at 
the Chateau of Chenonceaux, a royal residence 
upon the Cher, built by Henri II. for Diane de 
Poitiers, whose initials are still to be seen 
there. . . . We amused ourselves greatly in 
this fine spot; the living was of the best, and 
I became fat as a monk. We made a great deal 
of music and acted comedies." 



184 Old Touraine and the Loire Country 

One might imagine, from a stroll through the 
magnificent halls and galleries of Chenonceaux, 
that Rousseau's experiences might be repeated 
to-day if one were fortunate enough to be asked 
to sojourn there for a time. The nearest that 
one can get, however, to becoming personally 
identified with the chateau and its life is to sign 
his name in the great vellum quarto which ulti- 
mately will rest in the archives of the chateau. 

It is doubtless very wrong to be covetous; 
but Chenonceaux is such a beautiful place and 
comes so near the ideal habitation of our imag- 
ination that the desire to possess it for one's 
own is but human. 

In the ' ' Galerie Louis XIV. ' ' were given the 
first representations of many of Eousseau's 
pieces. 

One gathers from these accounts of the hap- 
penings in the Long Gallery that it formed no 
bridge of sighs, and most certainly it did not. 
Its walls resounded almost continually with 
music and laughter. Here in these rooms 
Henri 11. danced and made love and intrigued, 
while Catherine, his queen, was left at Blois 
with her astrologer and his poisons, to eat out 
her soul in comparative neglect. 

Before the time of the dwelling built by 
Bohier for himself and family on the founda- 



Chenonceaux 185 



tions of the old mill, there was yet a manor- 
house belonging to the ancient family of 
Marques, from whom the Norman financier 
bought the site. The tower, seen to-day at the 
right of the entrance to the chateau proper, — • 
an expressive relic of feudal times, — was a 
part of the earlier establishment. To-day it 
is turned into a sort of kiosque for the sale 
of photographs, post-cards, and an admirable 
illustrated guide to the chateau. 

The interior of the chateau to-day presents 
the following remarkable features : The dining- 
room of to-day, formerly the Salle des Gardes, 
has a ceiling in which the cipher of Catherine 
de Medici is interwoven with an arabesque. To 
the left of this apartment is the entrance to 
the chapel, which to-day seems a bit incongru- 
ously placed, leading as it does from the dining- 
room. It is but a tiny chapel, but it is as gay 
and brilliant as if it were still the adjunct of a 
luxury-loving court, and it has some glass dat- 
ing from 1521, which, if not remarkable for 
design or colouring, is quite choice enough to 
rank as an art treasure of real value. 

According to VioUet-le-Duc each feudal sei- 
gneur had attached to his chateau a chapel, 
often served by a private chaplain, and in some 
instances by an entire chapter of prelates. 



186 Old Touraine and the Loire Country 

These chapels were not simple oratories sur- 
rounded by the domestic apartments, but were 
architectural monuments in themselves, and 
either entirely isolated, as at Amboise, or semi- 
detached, as at Chenonceaux. 

Below, in the sub-basement, at Chenonceaux, 
are the original foundations upon which Bohier 
laid his first stones. Here, too, are various 
chambers, known respectively as the prison, 
the Bains de la Reine, the boulangerie, etc. 

Chenonceaux to-day is no whited sepulchre. 
It is a real living and livable thing, and, more- 
over, when one visits it, he observes that the 
family burn great logs in their fireplaces, have 
luxurious bouquets of flowers on their dining- 
table, and use great wax candles instead of the 
more prosaic oil-lamps, or worse — acetylene 
gas. Chenonceaux evidently has no thoughts 
of descending to steam heat and electricity. 

All this is as it should be, for when one visits 
a shrine like this he prefers to find it with as 
much as possible of the old-time atmosphere 
remaining. Chambord is bare and suggestive 
of the tomb, in spite of the splendour of its 
outline and proportions; Pierrefonds, in the 
north, is more so, and so would be Blois except 
for its restored or imitation decorations; but 
here at Chenonceaux all is different, and 



Chenonceaux 187 



breathes the spirit of other days as well as 
that of to-day. It is, perhaps, not exactly as 
Diane left it, or as Rousseau knew it under 
the regime of the Dupins, since, after many 
changings of hands, it became the property of 

-_ the Credit Fonder, by whom it was sold in 1891 
to Mr. Terry, an American. 

Chenonceaux has two other architectural 
monuments which are often overlooked under 
the spell of the more magnificent chateau. In 
the village is a small Renaissance church — in 
which the Renaissance never rose to any very 
great heights — which is here far more effect- 
ive and beautiful than usually are Renaissance 

___ahufches of any magnitude. There is also a 
sixteenth-century stone house in the same style 
and even more successful as an expression of 
the art of the time. It is readily found by 
inquiry, and is known as the '' Maison des 
Pages de FranQois I." 



CHAPTER IX. 



LOCHES 



Much may be written of Loclies, of its storied 
past, of its present-day quaintness, and of its 
wealth of architectural monuments. Its church 
is certainly the most curious religious edifice 
in all France, judging from a cross-section of 
the vaults and walls. More than all else, how- 
ever, Loches is associated in our minds with 
the memory of Agnes Sorel. 

Within the walls of the old collegiate church 
the lovely mistress of Charles VII. was buried 
in 1450; but later her remains and tomb were 
removed to one of the towers of the ancient 
castle of Loches, where they now are. She had 
amply endowed the church, but they would no 
longer give shelter to her remains, so her bones 
were removed five hundred years later. The 
statue which surmounts her tomb, as seen to- 
day, represents the '^ gentille Agnes " in all 
her loveliness, with folded hands on breast, a 
kneeling angel at her head and a couchant 

188 



Loches 



189 



lamb at her feet, — a reminder of her inno- 
cence, said Henry James, but surely he nodded 
when he said it. Lovely she was, and good in 
her way, but innocent she was not, as we have 
come to know the word. 

It is fitting to recall that Charles VII. was 
not the only monarch who sang her praises, for 




Loches 

it was Frangois I. who, many years later, wrote 
those lines beginning: 

" Gentille Agnes, plus de loz tu m^rites." 

Whether one comes to Loches by road or by 
rail, the first impression is the same ; he enters 
at once into a sleepy, old-world town which 
has practically nothing of modernity about it 
except the electric lights. 



190 Old Touraine and the Loire Country 

There is but one way to realize the imniense 
wealth of architectural monuments centred at 
Loches, and .that is to see the city for the first 
time, as, perhaps, Frangois Premier saw it 
when he journeyed from Amboise, and came 
upon it from the heights of the forest of 
Loches. The city has not grown much since 
that day. Then it had three thousand eight 
hundred souls, and now it has five thousand. 

Here, in the Foret de Loches, Henry II. of 
England built a monastery, — yet to be seen, — 
known as the Chartreuse du Liget, in repent- 
ance, or, perhaps, as a penance for the murder 
of Becket. Over the doorway of this monastery 
was graven: 

ANGLORUM HENRICUS REX 

THOM^ CCEDE CRUENTUS, 

LIGETICOS FUNDAT CARTUSIA MONAKOS. 

To-day the monastery is the property of a 
M. de Marsay, and therefore not open to the 
public; but the Chapelle du Liget, near by, is a 
fine contemporary church of the thirteenth cen- 
tury, well worth the admiration too infre- 
quently bestowed upon it. 

The first view of Loches must really be much 
as it was in Francois's time, except, perhaps, 
that the roadway down from the forest has 
improved, as roads have all over France, and 



Loches 191 

fruit-trees and vineyards planted out, whicli, 
however, in no way change the aspect when the 
town is first seen in the dim haze of an early 
November morning. 

It is the sky-line ensemble of the chateaux of 
the Eenaissance period which is their most 
varied feature. No two are alike, and yet they 
are all wonderfully similar in that they cut the 
sky with turret, tower, and chimney in a way 
which suggests nothing as much as the archi- 
tecture of fairy-land. 

The artists who illustrated the old fairy-tale 
books and drew castles wherein dwelt beautiful 
maidens could nowhere have found more real 
inspiration than among the chateaux of the 
Loire, the Cher, and the Indre. ^ 

Loches is a veritable mediaeval town, and it 
is even more than that, for its history dates 
back into the earliest years of feudal times. 
Loches is one of those soi-disant French towns 
not great enough to be a metropolis, and yet 
quite indifferent to the affairs of the outside 
world. 

The only false notes are those sounded by the 
various hawkers and cadgers for the visitor's 
money, who have hired various old mediaeval 
structures, within the walls, and assure one 
that in the basement of their establishment 



192 Old Touraine and the Loire Country 

there are fragments " recently discovered," — 
this in English, — quite worth the price of ad- 
mission which they charge you to peer about 
in a gloomy hole of a cellar, littered with empty 
wine-bottles and rubbish of all sorts. 

All this is delightful enough to the simon- 
pure antiquarian; but even he likes to dig 
things out for himself, and the householders 
can't all expect to find cachots in their sub- 
cellars or iron cages in their garrets unless they 
manufacture them. 

The old town, in spite of its lack of modern- 
ity, is full of surprises and contrasts that must 
make it very livable to one who cares to spend 
a winter within its walls. He may walk about 
on the ramparts on sunny days ; may fish in the 
Indre, below the mill ; and, if he is an artist, he 
will find, within a comparatively small area, 
much more that is exceedingly '* paintable " 
than is usually found in the fishing-villages of 
Brittany or on the sand-dunes of the Pas de 
Calais, '^ artist's sketching-grounds " which 
have been pretty well worked of late. 

The history of Loches is so varied and vivid 
that it is easy to account for the many remains 
of feudal and Renaissance days now existing. 
The derivation of its name is in some doubt. 
Loches was unquestionably the Luccae of the 




Loches and Its Church 



Loches 193 

Romans, but the Armorican Celts had the word 
loc'h, meaning much the same' thing, — un 
marais, — which is also wonderfully like the 
loch known to-day in the place-names of Scot- 
land and the lough of Ireland. Partisans may 
take their choice. 

In the fifth century a monastery was founded 
here by St. Ours, which ultimately gave its 
name to the collegiate church which exists to- 
day. A chateau, or more probably a fortress, 
appeared in the sixth century. The city was 
occupied by the Franks in the seventh century, 
but by 630 it had become united with Aquitaine. 
Pepin sacked it in 742, and Charles le Chauve 
made it a seat of a hereditary government 
which, by alliance, passed to the house of An- 
jou in 886, to whom it belonged up to 1205. 
Jean-sans-Terre gave it to France in 1193. 
Richard Cceur de Lion apparently resented 
this, for he retook it in the year following. In 
1204, Philippe-Auguste besieged Chinon and 
Loches simultaneously, and took the latter 
after a year, when he made it a fief, and gave it 
to Dreux de Mello, Constable of France, who 
in turn sold it to St. Louis. 

The chateau of Loches became first a for- 
tress, guarding the ancient Roman highway 
from the Blaisois to Aquitaine, then a prison, 



194 Old Touraine and the Loire Country 

and then a royal residence, to which. Charles 
VII. frequently repaired with Agnes Sorel, 
which calls up again the strangely contrasting 
influences of the two women whose names have 
gone down in history linked with that of 
Charles VII. 

'' Louis XI. aggrandized the chateau," says 
a French authority, " and perfected the pris- 
ons," whatever that may mean. He did, we 
know, build those terrible dungeons far down 
below the surface of the ground, where daylight 
never penetrated. They were perfect enough 
in all conscience as originally built, at least as 
perfect as the celebrated iron cage in which he 
imprisoned Cardinal Balue. The cage is not in 
its wonted place to-day, and only a ring in the 
wall indicates where it was once made fast. 

Charles VIII. added the great round tower; 
but it was not completed until the reign of 
Louis XII. FrauQois I., in a not too friendly 
meeting, received Charles Quint here in 1539, 
just previous to his visit to Amboise. Marie de 
Medici, on escaping from Blois, stopped at the 
chateau at the invitation of the governor, the 
Due d'Epernon, who sped her on her way, as 
joyfully as possible, to Angouleme. 

The chateau itself is the chief attraction of 
interest, just as it is the chief feature of the 



Loches 195 

landscape when viewed from afar. Of course 
it is understood that, when one speaks of the 
chateau at Loches, he refers to the collective 
chateaux which, in more or less fragmentary 
form, go to make up the edifice as it is to-day. 

Whether we admire most the structure of 
Geoffroy Grise-Gonelle, the elegant edifice of 
the fifteenth century, or the additions of 
Charles VII., Louis XL, Charles VIIL, Louis 
XII., or Henri III., we must conclude that to 
know this conglomerate structure intimately 
one must actually live with it. Nowhere in 
France — perhaps in no country — is there a 
chateau that suggests so stupendously the story 
of its past. 

The chief and most remarkable features are 
undoubtedly the great rectangular keep or don- 
jon, and the Tour Neuf or Tour Eonde. The 
first, in its immensity, quite rivals the best 
examples of the kind elsewhere, if it does not 
actually excel them in dimensions. It is, more- 
over, according to De Caumont, the most beau- 
tiful of all the donjons of France. As a state 
prison it confined Jean, Due d'Alengon, Pierre 
de Breze, and Philippe de Savoie. 

The Tour Ronde is a great cylinder flanked 
with dependencies which give it a more or less 
irregular form. It encloses the prison where 



196 Old Touraine and the Loire Country 

were formerly kept the famous cages, the in- 
vention of Cardinal Balue, who himself became 
their first victim. The Tour Eonde is reminis- 
cent of two great female figures in the medi- 
aeval portrait gallery, — Agnes Sorel and Anne 
de Bretagne. The tomb of Agnes Sorel is here, 
and the Duchesse Anne made an oratory in this 
grim tower, from which she sent up her prayer 
for the success and unity of the political plans 
which inspired her marriage into the royal 
family of France. It is a daintily decorated 
chamber, with the queen's family device, the 
ermine with its twisted necklet, prominently 
displayed. 

In the passage which conducts to the dun- 
geons of this great round tower, one reads this 
ironical invitation: " Entres, messieurs, ches le 
Roy Nostre Mestre " (O.F.). 

That portion of the collective chateaux fac- 
ing to the north is now occupied by the Sous- 
Prefecture, and is more after the manner of 
the residential chateaux of the Loire than of 
a fortress-stronghold or prison. Before this 
portion stands the famous chestnut-tree, 
planted, it is said, by Francois I., " and large 
enough to shelter the whole population of 
Loches beneath its foliage," says the same 
doubtful authority. 



Loches 197 

Under a fifteenth-century structure, called 
the Martelet, are the true dungeons of Loches. 
Here one is shown the cell occupied for nine 
years by the poor Ludovic Sforza, who died 
in 1510, from the mere joy of being liberated. 
More deeply hidden still is the famous Prison 
des Elveques of the era of Francois I. and the 
dungeon of Comte de St. Vallier, the father of 
the fascinating Diane, who herself was the 
means of securing his liberation by " fascinat- 
ing the king," as one French writer puts it. 
This may be so. St. Vallier was liberated, we 
know, and the susceptible Frangois was fas- 
cinated, though he soon tired of Diane and her 
charms. She had the perspicacity, however, to 
transfer her affections to his son, and so kept 
up a sort of family relationship. 

Like the historic " prisoner of Gisors," the 
occupants of the dungeons at Loches whiled 
away their lonely hours by inscribing their 
sentiments upon the walls. Only one remains 
to-day, though fragmentary stone-carved let- 
ters and characters are to be seen here and 
there. He who wrote the following was cer- 
tainly as cheerful as circumstances would al- 
low: 

« Malgr6 les ennuis d'une longue sonfErance, 
Et le cruel destin dont je subis la loy, 



198 Old Touraine and the Loire Country 

II est encort des biens pour moy, 

Le tendre amour et la douce esp^rance." 

Most of these formidable dungeons of Loches 
were prisons of state until well into the six- 
teenth century. 

Beneath, or rather beside, the very walls of 
the chateau is the bizarre collegiate church of 







St. Ours. One says bizarre, simply because it 
is curious, and not because it is unchurchly in 
any sense of the word, for it is not. Its low 
nave is surmounted by an enormous tower with 
a stone spire, while there are two other pyram- 
idal erections over the roof of the choir which 
make the whole look, not like an elephant, as 
a cynical Frenchman once wrote, but rather 




St. Ours, Loches 



Loches 199 

like a camel with two humps. This strange 
architectural anomaly is, in parts, almost 
pagan; certainly its font, a fragment of an 
ancient altar on which once burned a sacred 
fire, is pagan. 

There is a Romanesque porch of vast dimen- 
sions which is the real artistic expression of the 
fabric, dressed with extraordinary primitive 
sculptures of saints, demons, stryges, gnomes, 
and all manner of outre things. All these de- 
tails, however, are chiselled with a masterly 
conception. 

Behind this exterior vestibule the first bays 
of the nave form another, a sort of an inner 
vestibule, which carries out still further the 
unique arrangement of the whole edifice. This 
portion of the structure dates from a consecra- 
tion of the year 965, which therefore classes it 
as of very early date, — indeed, few are earlier. 
Most of the church, however, is of the twelfth 
century, including another great pyramid which 
rises above the nave and the two smaller ones 
just behind the spire. The side-aisles of the 
nave were added between the twelfth and fif- 
teenth centuries, while only the stalls and the 
tabernacle are as recent as the sixteenth. The 
eastern end is triapsed, an unusual feature in 
France. From this one realizes, quite to the 



200 Old Touraine and the Loire Country 

fullest extent possible, the antiquity and in- 
dividuality of the Eglise de St. Ours at Loches. 

The quaint Kenaissance H6tel-de-Ville was 
built by the architect Jean Beaudoin (1535- 
1543), from sums raised, under letters patent 
from Frangois I., by certain octroi taxes. 
From the fact that through its lower story 
passes one of the old city entrances, it has come 
to be known also as the Porte Picoys. In every 
way it is a worthy example of Kenaissance 
civic architecture. 

In the Eue de Chateau is a remarkable 
Eenaissance house, known as the Chancellerie, 
which dates from the reign of Henri II. It has 
most curious sculptures on its fagade inter- 
spersed with the devices of royalty and the in- 
scription : 

IVSTITIA REGNO, PEUDENTIA NUTRISCO. 

The Tour St. Antoine serves to-day as the 
city's belfry. It is all that remains of a church, 
demolished long since, which was built in 1519- 
30, in imitation of St. Gatien's of Tours. 
Doubtless it was base in many of its details, as 
is its more famous compeer at Tours ; but, if the 
old tower which remains is any indication, it 
must have been an elaborate and imposing work 
of the late Grothic and early Eenaissance era. 



Loches 201 

As a literary note, lovers of Dumas 's ro- 
mances will be interested in the fact that in the 
Hotel de la Couroirie at Loches a body of Prot- 
estants captured the celebrated Chicot, the 
jester of Henri III. and Henri IV. 

Loches has a near neighbour in Beaulieu, 
which formerly possessed an ardent hatred for 
its more progressive and successful contempo- 
rary, Loches. Its very name has been per- 
verted by local historians as coming from Belli- 
locus, '' the place of war," and not " le lieu 
d'un hel aspect." 

The abbey church at Beaulieu was built by 
the warlike Foulques Nerra (in 1008-12), who 
usually built fortresses and left church-build- 
ing to monks and bishops. It is a remarkable 
Romanesque example, though, since the fif- 
teenth century, it has been mostly in ruins. 
Foulques Nerra himself, whose countenance 
had '' la majeste de celui d'un ange/' found his 
last resting-place within its walls, which also 
sheltered much rich ornament, to-day greatly 
defaced, though that of the nave, which is still 
intact, is an evidence of its former worth. 

The abbatial residence, still existent, has a 
curious exterior pulpit built into the wall, ex- 
amples of which are not too frequent in France. 

Agnes Sorel, the belle of belles, lived here for 



202 Old Touraine and the Loire Country 

a time in a house near the Porte de Guigne, 
which bears a great stone panonceau, from 
which the armorial bearings have to-day dis- 
appeared. It is another notable monument to 
" the most graceful woman of her times," and 
without doubt has as much historic value as 
many another more popular shrine of history. 

In connection with Agnes Sorel, who was so 
closely identified with Loches and Beaulieu, it 
is to be recalled that she was known to the 
chroniclers of her time as '' la dame de Beaute- 
sur-Marne/' — a place which does not appear in 
the books of the modern geographers. It may 
be noted, too, that it was the encouragement of 
the '' belle des belles " of Charles VII. that, in 
a way, contributed to that monarch's success 
in politics and arms, for her sway only began 
with Jeanne d 'Arc's supplication at Gien and 
Chinon. Tradition has it, indeed, that it was 
the '^ gentille Agnes " who put the sword of 
victory in his hands when he set out on his 
campaign of reconquest. Thus does the Jeanne 
d 'Arc legend receive a damaging blow. 

The chateau of Sausac, an elegant edifice of 
the sixteenth century, completely restored in 
later days, is near by. 




s 

o 

^ 



CHAPTEE X. 

TOUES AND ABOUT THEKE 

TouEs, above all other of the ancient capitals 
of the French provinces, remains to-day a ville 
de luxe, the elegant capital of a land balmy and 
delicious ; a land of which Dante sung : 

« Terra molle, e dolce e dilettosa. ..." 

It is not a very grand town as the secondary 
cities of France go; not like Eouen or Lyons, 
Bordeaux or Marseilles; but it is as typical a 
reflection of the surrounding country as any, 
and therein lies its charm. 

One never comes within the influence of its 
luxurious, or, at least, easy and comfortable 
appointments, its distinctly modern and up-to- 
date railway station, its truly magnificent mod- 
ern Hotel de Ville, its well-appointed hotels 
and cafes and its luxurious shops, but that he 
realizes all this to a far greater extent than in 
any other city of France. 

And again, referring to the material things 

203 



204 Old Touraine and the Loire Country 

of life, everything is most comfortable, and the 
restaurants and hotels most attractive in their 
fare. Tours is truly one provincial capital 
where the cuisine hourgeoise still lives. 

Touraine, and Tours in particular, besides 
many other things, is noted for its hotels. Their 
praises have been sung often and loudly, not 
forgetting Henry James's praise of the Hotel 
de I'Univers, which is all one expects to find it 
and more. The same may be said of the Hotel 
du Croissant, with the added opinion that it 
serves the most bountiful and excellent de- 
jeuner to be had in all provincial France. It 
is difficult to say just what actually causes all 
this excellence and abundance, except that the 
catering there is an easy and pleasurable oc- 
cupation. 

The Eue Nationale — '' toujours et vraiment 
royale " — is the great artery of Tours run- 
ning riverwards. On it circulates all the life of 
the city. 

To the right is the Quartier de la Cathedrale, 
where are assembled the great houses of the 
nobility — or such of them as are left — and of 
the old bourgeoisie tourangelle. 

To the left are the streets of the workers, a 
silk-mill or two, and the printing-offices. Tours 
is and always has been celebrated for the num- 



Tours and About There 



205 



ber and size of its imprimeries, witli which, in 
olden times, the name of the great Christopher 
Plantin, the master printer of Antwerp, was 
connected. To-day, Tours 's greatest establish- 
ment is that of Alfred Mame et Fils, known 
throughout the Eoman Catholic world. 

The printers and booksellers of the middle 
ages were favoured persons, and their rank 




was high. In the days of solemn processions 
the booksellers led the way, followed by the 
paper - makers, the parchment - makers, the 
scribes, — who had not wholly died out, — 
the binders and the illuminators. In these days 
the printers were granted an emblazoned arms, 
which was characteristic and distinguished. 
The same was true of the avocats, who bore 
upon their escutcheon a gowned figure, with 
something very like a halo surrounding its 
head. The innkeepers went one better, and had 
a bishop with an undeniable halo. This is 



206 Old Touraine and the Loire Country 

curious and inexplicable in the light of our 
modern conception of similar things, but it's 
better than a shield with quarter ings represent- 
ing half a canal-boat and half a locomotive, 
which was recently adopted by an enterprising 
watering-place which shall be nameless. 

In the same ancient quarter are the old 
towers of Charlemagne and St. Martin. This 
part of the town is the nucleus of the old foun- 
dation, the site of the oppidum of the Turones, 
the CcBsarodunum gallo-romain, and of the life 
which centred around the old abbey of St. 
Martin, so venerated and so powerful in the 
middle ages. 

To the inviolable refuge of this old abbey 
came multitudes of Christian pilgrims from 
the world over; the Merovingians to undergo 
the penances imposed upon them by the bish- 
ops and clerics in expiation of their crimes. 
Under Charlemagne, the Abbe Alcuin founded 
great schools of languages, history, astronomy, 
and music, from which founts of learning went 
forth innumerable and illustrious religious 
teachers. 

All but the two towers of this old religious 
foundation are gone. The years of the Eevolu- 
tion saw the fall of the abbey ; a street was cut 
through the nave of its church, and the two 



Tours and About There 207 

dismembered parts stand to-day as monuments 
to tlie sacrilege of modern times. 

To-day a banal faubourg has sprung up 
around the site of the abbey, with here and 
there old tumble-down houses either of wood 
and stone, such as one reads of in the pages of 
Bg,lzac, or sees in the designs of Dore, or with 
their sides covered with overlapping slates. 

Amid all these is an occasional treasure of 
architectural art, such as the graceful Fountain 
of Beaune, the work of Michel Colombe, and 
some remains of early Renaissance houses of 
somewhat more splendid appointments than 
their fellows, particularly the Maison de Tris- 
tan I'Hermite, the Hotel Xaincoings, and many 
exquisite fragments now made over into an 
auberge or a cabaret, which make one dream of 
Rabelais and his Gargantua. 

It is uncertain whether Michel Colombe, who 
designed this fountain and also that master- 
work, the tomb of the Due Frangois II. and 
Marguerite de Foix, at Nantes, was a Touran- 
geau or a Breton, but Tours claims him for her 
own, and settles once for all the spelling of his 
name by producing a '^ papier des affaires " 
signed plainly '' Colombe." The proof lies in 
this document, signed in a notary's office at 
Tours, concerning payments which were made 



208 Old Touraine and the Loire Country 

to him on behalf of the magnificent sepulchre 
which he executed for the church of St. Sauveur 
at La Eochelle. In his time — fifteenth century 
— Colombe had no rivals in the art of mon- 
umental sculpture in France, and with reason 
he has been called the Michel Ange of France. 

The cathedral quarter has for its chief attrac- 
tion that gorgeously florid St. Gatien, whose 
ornate f agade was likened by a certain monarch 
to a magnificently bejewelled casket. It is an 
interesting and lovable Gothic-Eenaissance 
church which, if not quite of the first rank 
among the masterpieces of its kind, is a marvel 
of splendour, and an example of the " caprices 
d'une guipure d'art," as the French call it. 

Bordering the Loire at Tours is a series 
of tree-lined quays and promenades which are 
the scenes, throughout the spring and summer 
months, of fetes and fairs of many sorts. Here, 
too, at the extremity of the Eue Nationale, are 
statues of Descartes and Balzac. 

The Tour de Guise on the river-bank recalls 
the domination of the Plantagenet kings of 
England, who were Counts of Anjou since it 
formed a part of the twelfth-century chateau 
built here by Henry 11. of England. 

At the opposite extremity of the city is an- 
other tower, the Tour de Foubert, which pro- 




suikKi:" ■".r-'''"s?;sB®JStes%;«* 




irao \ ,M^'^V,5sA\oJ o'^ sb "^3> 



•«ia 




208 Old Touraine and the Loire Country 

to him on behalf of the magnificent sepulnir,- 
which he executed for the church of St. Sauveu ; 
at La Eochelle. In his time — fifteenth centur 
— Colombe had no rivals in the art of mon 
umental sculpture in France, and with reasofi 
he has been called the Michel Ange of France. 
The cathedral quarter has for its chief attrac- 
tion that gorgeously florid St. Gatien, whose 
ornate f agade was likened by a certain monarch 
to a magnificently bejewelled casket. It is an 
interesting and lovable Gothic-Renaissance 
church which, if not quite of the first rank 

amoi3§cl^ m^^mm <^ ^^^M^,WM^^ 

of splendour, and an example of the ' ' caprices 
d'une guipure d'art/' as the French call it. 

Bordering the Loire at Tours is a series 
of tree-lined quays and promenades which are 
the scenes, throughout the spring and summer 
months, of fetes and fairs of many sorts. Here, 
too, at the extremity of the Rue Nationale, are 
statues of Descartes and Balzac. 

The Tour de Guise on the river-bank recalls 
the. domination of the Plantagenet kings of 
England, who were Counts of Anjou since it 
formed a part of the twelfth-century chateau 
built here by Henry II. of England. 

At the opposite extremity of the city is an- 
other tower, the Tour de Foubert, which pro- 



Tours and About There 209 

tected the feudal domain of the old abbey of 
St. Martin. The history of days gone by at 
Tours was more churchly than political. 

Once only — during the reign of Louis XII. 
— did the States General meet at Tours (in 
1506). Then the deputies of the bourgeoisie 
met alone for their deliberations, the chief out- 
come of which was to bestow upon the king the 
eminently fitting title of " Pere du Peuple." 
One may question the righteousness of Louis 
XII. in throwing over his wife, Jeanne de 
France, in order to serve political ends by ac- 
quiring the estates of Anne of Brittany for the 
Crown of France for ever, but there is no doubt 
but that he did it for the '^ good of his people." 

The principal literary shrine at Tours is the 
house, in the Eue Nationale, where was born 
Honor e de Balzac. 

One could not do better than to visit Tours 
during the '' ete de St. Martin," since it was the 
soldier-priest of Tours who gave his name to 
that warm, bright prolongation of summer 
which in France (and in England) is known as 
'' St. Martin's summer," and which finds its 
counterpart in America's " Indian summer." 

The legend tells us that somewhere in the 
dark ages lived a soldier named Martin. He 
was always of a charitable disposition, and 



210 Old Touraine and the Loire Country 

none asked alms of him in vain. One November 
day, when the wind blew briskly and the snow 
fell fast, a beggar asked for food and clothing. 
Martin had but his own cloak, and this he forth- 
with tore in half and gave one portion to the 
beggar. Later on the same night there came 
a knocking at Martin's door; the snow had 
ceased falling and the stars shone brightly, and 
one of goodly presence stood with the cloak 
on his arm, saying, " I was naked and ye 
clothed me." Martin straightway became a 
priest of the church, and died an honoured 
bishop of Tours, and for ever after the anni- 
versary of his conversion is celebrated by 
sunny skies. 

We owe a double debt to St. Martin. We 
have to thank him for the saying, " All my 
eye " and the words ^' chapel " and " chap- 
lain." The full form of the phrase, '' All my 
eye and Betty Martin," which we all of us have 
often heard, is an obvious corruption of '^ 
mihi beate Martine," the beginning of an invo- 
cation to the saint. The cloak he divided with 
a naked beggar, which, by the way, took place 
at Amiens, not at Tours, was treasured as a 
relic by the Frankish kings, borne before them 
in battle, and brought forth when solemn oaths 
were to be taken. The guardians of this cloak 



Tours and About There 211 

or cape were known as " cappellani," whence 
'^ chaplain," while its sanctuary or " cap- 
pella " has become " chapel." 

For their descriptions of Plessis-les-Tours 
modern English travellers have invariably 
turned to the pages of Sir Walter Scott. This 
is all very well in its way, but it is also well 
to remember that Scott drew his picture from 
definite information, and it is not merely the 
product of his imaginary architectural skill. 
In this respect Scott was certainly far ahead 
of Carlyle in his estimates of French matters. 

'' Even in those days " (writing of " Quen- 
tin Durward "), said Scott, '' when the great 
found themselves obliged to reside in places of 
fortified strength, it " (Plessis - les - Tours) 
*' was distinguished for the extreme and jealous 
care with which it was watched and defended. ' ' 
All this is substantiated and corroborated by 
authorities, and, while it may have been chosen 
by Scott merely as a suitable accessory for the 
details of his story, Plessis-les-Tours unques- 
tionably was a royal stronghold of such pro- 
portions as to be but meanly suggested by the 
scanty remains of the present day. 

Louis XI, dreamed fondly of Plessis-les- 
Tours (Plessis being from the Latin Plexitium, 
a name borne by many suburban villages of 



212 Old Touraine and the Loire Country 

France), and he sought to make it a royal resi- 
dence where he should be safe from every out- 
ward harm. It had four great towers, crenel- 
ated and machicolated, after the best Gothic 
fortresses of the time. At the four angles of 
the protecting walls were the principal logis, 
and between the lines of its ramparts or fosses 
was an advance-guard of buildings presumably 
intended for the vassals in time of danger. 

This was the castle as Louis first knew it, 
when it was the property of the chamberlain 
of the Duchy of Luynes, from whom the king 
bought it for five thousand and five hundred 
ecus d'or, — the value of fifty thousand francs 
of to-day. 

Its former appellation, Montilz-les-Tours, 
was changed (1463) to Plessis. All the chief 
features have disappeared, and to-day it is but 
a scrappy collection of tumble-down buildings 
devoted to all manner of purposes. A few 
fragmentary low-roofed vaults are left, and 
a brick and stone building, flanked by an octag- 
onal tower, containing a stairway; but this is 
about all of the former edifice, which, if not as 
splendid as some other royal residences, was 
quite as effectively defended and as suitable to 
its purposes as any. 

It had, too, within its walls a tiny chapel 



Tours and About There 213 




214 Old Touraine and the Loire Country 

dedicated to Our Lady of Clery, before whose 
altar the superstitious Louis made his incon- 
stant devotions. 

Once a great forest surrounded the chateau, 
and was, as Scott says, '' rendered dangerous 
and well-nigh impracticable by snares and 
traps armed with scythe-blades, which shred 
off the unwary traveller's limbs . . . and cal- 
throps that would pierce your foot through, 
and pitfalls deep enough to bury you in them 
for ever." To-day the forest has disappeared, 
'' lost in the night of time," as a French his- 
torian has it. 

The detailed description in '^ Quentin Dur- 
ward " is, however, as good as any, and, if one 
has no reference works in French by him, he 
may well read the dozen or more pages which 
Sir Walter devotes to the further description 
of the castle. 

Perhaps, after all, it is fitting that a Scot 
should have written so enthusiastically of it, 
for the castle itself was guarded by the Scot- 
tish archers, " to the number of three hundred 
gentlemen of the best blood of Scotland." 

An anonymous poet has written of the an- 
cient glory of this retreat of Louis's as fol- 
lows : 



Tours and About There 215 

" Un imposant chateau se presents a la vue, 
Par des portes de fer I'entr^e est d^fendue ; 
Les murs en sont 6pais et les fosses prof onds ; 
On y voit des cr^neaux, des tours, des bastions, 
Et des soldats arm^s veillent sur ses murailles." 

Frame this with such details as the surround- 
ing country supplies, the Cher on one side, the 
Loire on the other, and the fertile hills of St. 
Cyr, of Ballon, and of Joue, and one has a 
picture worthy of the greatest painter of any 
time. 

Louis XI. died at Plessis, after having lived 
there many years. Louis XII. made of it a 
rendezvous de chasse, but Frangois II. confided 
its care to a governor and would never live 
in it. Louis XIV. gave the governorship as 
a hereditary perquisite to the widow of the 
Seigneur de Sausac. 

In 1778 it was used as a sort of retreat for 
the indigent, though happily enough Touraine 
was never overburdened with this class of hu- 
manity. Under Louis XV. a Mademoiselle De- 
neux, a momentary rival of La Pompadour and 
Du Barry, found a retreat here. Later it be- 
came a maison de correction, and finally a 
depot militaire. At the time of the Revolution 
it was declared to be national property, and on 
the nineteenth Nivoise, Year IV., Citizen Cor- 
meri, justice of the peace at Tours, fixed its 



216 Old Touraine and the Loire Country 

value at one hundred and thirty-one thousand 
francs. 

To-day it is as bare and uncouth as a mere 
barracks or as a disused flour-mill, and its ruins 
are visited partly because of their former his- 
torical glories, as recalled by students of 
French history, and partly because of the 
glamour which was shed over it, for English 
readers, by Scott. 

Sixty years ago a French writer deplored the 
fact that, on leaving these scanty remains of a 
so long gone past, he observed a notice nailed 
to a pillar of the porte-cochere reading: 



LA FERME DU PLESSI8 
O LOUER OU A VENDRE 



To-day some sort of a division and rear- 
rangement of the property has been made, but 
the result is no less mournful and sad, and thus 
a glorious page of the annals of France has 
become blurred. 

It is interesting to recall what manner of 
persons composed the household of Louis XI. 
when he resided at Plessis-les-Tours. Com- 
mines, his historian, has said that habitually 
it consisted of a chancellor, a juge de Vhotel, 



Tours and About There 217 

a private secretary, and a treasurer, each hav- 
ing under him various employees. In addition 
there was a master of the pantry, a cupbearer, 
a chef de bouche and a chef de cuisine, a frui- 
tier, a master of the horse, a quartermaster 
or master-at-arms, and, in immediate control of 
these domestic servants, a seneschal or grand 
maitre. In many respects the household was 
not luxuriously conducted, for the parsimoni- 
ous Louis lived fully up to the false maxim: 
" Qui peu donne, beaucoup recueille." 

Louis himself was fond of doing what the 
modern housewife would call " messing about 
in the kitchen." He did not dabble at cookery 
as a pastime, or that sort of thing ; but rather 
he kept an eagle eye on the whole conduct of 
the affairs of the household. 

One day, coming to the kitchen en neglige, 
he saw a small boy turning a spit before the 
fire. 

'' And what might you be called? " said he, 
patting the lad on the shoulder. 

'' Etienne," replied the marmiton. 

^' Thy pays, my lad? " 

'^ Le Berry." 

'' Thy age? " 

'' Fifteen, come St. Martin's." 

'' Thy wish? " 



218 Old Touraine and the Loire Country 

'' To be as great as the king " (he had not 
recognized his royal master). 

" And what wishes the king? " 

" His expenses to become less." 

The reply brought good fortune for the lad, 
for Louis made him his valet de chamhre, and 
took him afterward into his most intimate con- 
fidence. 

Louis was fond of la chasse, and Scott does 
not overlook this fact in " Quentin Durward." 
When affairs of state did not press, it was the 
king's greatest pleasure. For the royal hunt no 
pains or expense were spared. The carriages 
were without an equal elsewhere in the courts 
of Europe, and the hunting establishment was 
equipped with chiens courants from Spain, 
levriers from Bretagne, bassets from Valence, 
mules from Sicily, and horses from Naples. 

The attractions of the environs of Tours are 
many and interesting: St. Symphorien, Va- 
rennes, the Grottoes of Ste. Radegonde, and the 
site of that most famous abbey of Marmoutier, 
also a foundation of St. Martin. Here, under 
the name Martinus Monasterium, grew up an 
immense and superb establishment. From an 
old seventeenth-century print one quotes the 
following couplet: i 



Tours and About There 



219 



" De quel c6t6 que le vent vente 
Marmoutier a cens at rente." 

From this one infers that the abbey's original 
functions are performed no more. 




In the middle ages (thirteenth century) it 
was one of the most powerful institutions of its 
class, and its church one of the most beautiful 



220 Old Touraine and the Loire Country 

in Touraine. The tower and donjon .are the 
only substantial remains of this early edifice. 

A curious chapel, called the '' Chapelle des 
Sept Dormants," is here cut in the form of a 
cross into the rock of the hillside, where are 
buried the remains of the Seven Sleepers, 
the disciples of St. Martin, who, as the holy 
man had predicted, all died on the same day. 

Beyond Marmoutier, a stairway of 122 steps, 
cut also in the rock, leads to the plateau on 
which stands the gaunt and ugly Lanterne de 
Rochecorbon, a fourteenth-century construc- 
tion with a crenelated summit, an unlovely 
companion of that even more enigmatic erec- 
tion known as ''La Pile," a few miles down 
the Loire at Cinq-Mars. 



CHAPTER XI. 



LUYNES AND LANGEAIS 



Below Tours, and before reaching Saumnr, 
are a succession of panoramic surprises which 
are only to be likened to those of our imag- 
ination, but they are very real nevertheless. 

As one leaves Tours by the road which skirts 
the right bank of the Loire, he is once more 
impressed by the fact that the cailloux de Loire 
are the river's chief product, though fried fish, 
of a similar variety to those found in the Seine, 
are found on the menus of all roadside taverns 
and restaurants. 

Still, the effect of the uncovered bed of the 
Loire, with its variegated pebbles and mirror- 
like pools, is infinitely more picturesque than if 
it were mud flats, and its tree-bordered banks 
are for ever opening great alleyed vistas such 
as are only known in France. 

The hills on either bank are not of the stu- 
pendous and magnificently scenic order of those 
of the Seine above and below Rouen ; but, such 

221 



222 Old Touraine and the Loire Country 

as they are, they are of much the same com- 
position, a soft talcy formation which here 
serves admirably the purposes of clifif-dwell- 
ings for the vineyard and wine-press workers, 
who form practically the sole population of the 
Loire villages from Vouvray, just above Tours, 
to Saumur far below. 

On the hillsides are the vineyards them- 
selves, growing out of the thin layer of soil 
in shades of red and brown and golden, which 
no artist has ever been able to copy, for no 
one has painted the rich colouring of a vine- 
yard in a manner at all approaching the orig- 
inal. 

Not far below Tours, on the right bank, rise 
the towers and turrets of the Chateau de 
Luynes, hanging perilously high above the low- 
land which borders upon the river. An un- 
pleasant tooting tram gives communication a 
dozen times a day with Tours, but few, appar- 
ently, patronize it except peasants with market- 
baskets, and vineyard workers going into town 
for a jollification. It is perhaps just as well, 
for the fine little town of Luynes, which takes 
its name from the chateau which has been the 
residence of a Comte de Luynes since the days 
of Louis XIIL, would be quite spoiled if it were 
on the beaten track. 



222 Old Touraine and the Loire Country 

as they are, they are of much the same com- 
position, a soft talcy formation which here 
serves admirably the purj^oses of cliff-dwell- 
ings for the vineyard and wine-press workers, 
who form practically the sole population of the 
Loire villages from Vouvray, just above Tours, 
to Saumur far below. 

On' the hillsides are the vineyards them- 
selves, growing out of the thin layer of soil 
in shades of red and brown and golden, which 
no artist has ever been able to copy, for no 
one has painted the rich colouring of a vine- 
yard in a4n^^g^,^t^^l^ag)^^roaching the orig- 
inal. 

Not far below Tours, on the right bank, rise 
the towers and turrets of the Chateau de 
Luynes, hanging perilously high above the low- 
land which borders upon the river. An un- 
pleasant tooting tram, gives communication a 
dozen times a day with Tours, but few, appar- 
ently, patronize it except peasants with market- 
baskets, and vineyard workers going into town 
for a jollification. It is perhaps just as well, 
for the fine little town of Luynes, which takes 
its name from the chateau which has been the 
residence of a Comte de Luynes since the days 
of Louis XIIL, would be quite spoiled if it were 
on the beaten track. 



Luynes and Langeais 223 

The brusque fagade of the Chateau de Luynes 
makes a charming interior, judging from the 
descriptions and drawings which are to be met 
with in an elaborately prepared volume devoted 
to its history. 

The stranger is allowed to enter within the 
gates of the courtyard, beneath the grim coiff ed 
towers; but he may visit only certain apart- 
ments. He will, however, see enough to indi- 
cate that the edifice was something more than 
a mere maison de campagne. All the attributes 
of an important fortress are here, great, round, 
thickly built towers, with but few exterior win- 
dows, and those high up from the ground. 
There is nothing of luxurious elegance about 
it, and its aspect is forbidding, though im- 
posing. 

The chateau belies its looks somewhat, for it 
was built only in the fifteenth and sixteenth 
centuries, when, in most of its neighbours, the 
more or less florid Eenaissance was in vogue. 
A Renaissance structure in stone and brick 
forms a part of that which faces on the interior 
court, and is flanked by a fine octagonal " tour 
d'escalier." 

From the terrace of the courtyard one gets 
an impressive view of the Loire, which glides 
by two or more kilometres away, and of the 



224 Old Touraine and the Loire Country 

towers and roof-tops of Tours, and the vine- 
carpeted hills which stretch away along the 
river's bank in either direction. 

The chateau of Luynes is still in the posses- 
sion of a Due de Luynes, through whose cour- 
tesy one may visit such of the apartments as 
his servants are allowed to show. It is not 
so great an exhibition, nor so good a one, as 
is to be had at Langeais ; but it is satisfactory 
as far as it goes, and, when it is supplemented 
by the walks and views which are to be had 
on the plateau, upon which the grim-towered 
chateau sits, the memory of it all becomes most 
pleasurable. 

The former Dues de Luynes were continually 
appearing in the historic events of the later 
Eenaissance period, but it was only with 
Louis XIIL, he who would have put France 
under the protection of the Virgin, that the 
chatelain of Luynes came to a position of real 
power. Louis made Albert, the Gascon, both 
Due de Luynes and Connetable de France, and 
thereby gave birth to a tyrant whom he hated 
and feared, as he did his mother, his wife, and 
his minister, Richelieu. 

The site occupied by the chateau of Luynes 
is truly marvellous, though, as a matter of fact, 
there is no great magnificence about the pro- 




MedicBval Stairway and the Chateau de Luyyies 



Luynes and Langeais 225 

portions of the chateau itself. It is piled grace- 
fully on the top of a table-land which rises 
abruptly from the Loire and has a charmingly 
quaint old town nestled confidingly below it, 
as if for protection. 

One reaches the chateau by any one of a half- 
dozen methods, by the highroad which bends 
around in hairpin curves until it reaches the 
plateau above, by various paths across or 
around the vineyards of the hillside, or by a 
quaintly cut mediaeval stairway, levelled and 
terraced in the gravelly soil until it ends just 
beneath the frowning walls of the chateau itself. 
From this point one gets quite the most impos- 
ing aspect of the chateau to be had, its towers 
and turrets piercing the sky high above the 
head, and carrying the mind back to the days 
when civilization meant something more — or 
less — than it does to-day, with the toot of a 
steam-tram down below on the river's bank 
and the midday whistles of the factories of 
Tours rending one's ears the moment he forgets 
the past and recalls the present. 

To-day the Chateau de Luynes is modern, 
at least to the extent that it is lived in, and has 
all the refinements of a modern civilization; 
but one does not realize all this from an exte- 
rior contemplation, and only as one strolls 



226 Old Touraine and the Loire Country 

through the apartments publicly shown, and 
gets glimpses of electrical conveniences and 
modern arrangements, does he wonder how far 
different it may have been before all this came 
to pass. 

Built in early Eenaissance times, the chateau 
has all the peculiarities of the feudal period, 
when window-openings were few and far be- 
tween, and high up above the level of the pave- 
ment. In feudal and warlike times this often 
proved an admirable feature; but one would 
have thought that, with the beginning of the 
Eenaissance, a more ample provision would 
have been made for the admission of sunshine. 

The chef-d'oeuvre of this really great archi- 
tectural monument is undoubtedly the fagade 
of the beautiful fifteenth-century courtyard. 
There is nothing even remotely feudal here, 
but a purely decorative effect which is as 
charming in its way as is the exterior fagade 
of Azay-le-Eideau. '' A poem," it has been 
called, *' in weather-worn timber and stone," 
and the simile could hardly be improved upon. 

The town, too, or such of it as immediately 
adjoins the chateau, is likewise charming and 
quaint, and sleepily indolent as far as any great 
activity is concerned. 

Luynes was the seat of a seigneurie until 



Luynes and Langeais 227 

1619, when it became a possession of the Comte 
de Maille. Finally it came to Charles d 'Albert, 
known as '' D 'Albert de Luynes," a former 
page to Henri IV., who afterward became the 
favourite and the Guardian of the Seals of 
Louis XIV.; and thus the earlier foundation 
of Maille became known as Luynes. 

Except for its old houses of wood and stone, 
its old wooden market-house, and its tortuous 
streets of stairs, there are few features here, 
except the chateau, which take rank as archi- 
tectural monuments of worth. The church is 
a modern structure, built after the Romanesque 
manner and wholly without warmth and feel- 
ing. 

From the height on which stands the chateau 
of Luynes one sees, as his eye follows the 
course of the Loire to the southwestward, the 
gaunt, unbeautif ul ' ' Pile ' ' of Cinq-Mars. The 
origin of this singular square tower, looking 
for all the world like a factory chimney or some 
great ventilating-shaft, is lost far back in Car- 
lovingian, or perhaps Roman, times. It is a 
mystery to archaeologists and antiquarians, 
some claiming it to be a military monument, 
others a beacon by land, and yet others believ- 
ing it to be of some religious significance. 

At all events, all the explanations ignore the 



228 Old Touraine and the Loire Country 

four pyramidions of its topmost course, and 
these, be it remarked, are quite the most curi- 
ous feature of the whole fabric. 

To many the name of the little town of Cinq- 
Mars will suggest that of the Marquis de Cinq- 
Mars, a court favourite of Louis XIII. It was 
the ambitious but unhappy career at court of 
this young gallant which ultimately resulted in 
his death on the scaffold, and in the razing, 
by Richelieu, of his ancestral residence, the 
castle of Cinq-Mars, " to the heights of in- 
famy." The expression is a curious one, but 
history so records it. All that is left to-day 
to remind one of the stronghold of the D 'Effiats 
of Cinq-Mars are its two crumbling gate- 
towers with an arch between and a few frag- 
mentary foundation walls which follow the 
summit of the cliff behind '' La Pile." 

The little town of not more than a couple 
of thousand inhabitants nestles in a bend of the 
Loire, where there is so great a breadth that 
it looks like a long-drawn-out lake. The low 
hills, so characteristic of these parts, stretch 
themselves on either bank, unbroken except 
where some little streamlet forces its way by 
a gentle ravine through the scrubby under- 
growth. Oaks and firs and huge limestone 
cliffs jut out from the top of the hillside on 




Ruins oj Cinq-Mars 



Luynes and Langeais 229 

the right bank and shelter the town which lies 
below. 

Cinq-Mars is a miniature metropolis, though 
not a very progressive one at first sight; in- 
deed, beyond its long main street and its houses, 
which cluster about its grim, though beautiful, 
tenth and twelfth century church, there are few 
signs of even provincial importance. 

In reality Cinq-Mars is the centre of a large 
and important wine industry, where you may 
hear discussed, at the tahle d'hote of its not 
very readily found little inn^, the poor prices 
which the usually abundant crop always brings. 
The native even bewails the fact that he is not 
blessed with a poor season or two and then he 
would be able to sell his fine vintages for some- 
thing more than three sous a litre. By the time 
it reaches Paris this vin de Touraine of com- 
merce has aggrandized itself so that it com- 
mands two francs fifty centimes on the Boule- 
vards, and a franc fifty in the University 
quarter. 

The fall of Henri Cinq-Mars was most 
pathetic, though no doubt moralists will claim 
that because of his covetous ambitions he de- 
served nothing better. 

He went up to Paris from Touraine, a boy of 
twenty, and was presented to the king, who was 



230 Old Touraine and the Loire Country 

immediately impressed by his distinguished 
manners. From infancy Cinq-Mars had been a 
lover of life in the open. He had hunted the 
forests of Touraine, and had angled the waters 
of the Loire, and thus he came to give a new 
zest to the already sad life of Louis XIII. 
Honour after honour was piled upon him until 
he was made Grand Seneschal of France and 
Master of the King's Horse, at which time he 
dropped his natal patronymic and became 
known as " Monsieur le Grand." 

Cinq-Mars fell madly in love with Marion 
Delorme and wished to make her " Madame 
la Grande, ' ' but the dowager Marquise de Cinq- 
Mars would not hear of it: Mile. Marion De- 
lorme, the Aspasia of her day, would be no 
honour to the ancestral tree of the Effiats of 
Cinq-Mars. 

Headstrong and wilful, one early morning. 
Monsieur le Grand and his beloved, then only 
thirty, took coach from her hotel in the Eue des 
Tournelles at Paris for the old family castle 
in Touraine, sitting high on the hills above the 
feudal village which bore the name of Cinq- 
Mars. In the chapel they were secretly mar- 
ried, and for eight days the proverbial mar- 
riage-bell rang true. Their Nemesis appeared 
on the ninth day in the person of the dowager. 



Luynes and Langeais 231 

and Cinq-Mars told his mother that the whole 
affair was simply a passe temps, and that 
Mile. Delorme was still Mile. Delorme. His 
mother would not be deceived, however, and she 
flew for succour to Eichelieu, who himself was 
more than slightly acquainted with the charms 
of the fair Marion. 

This was Cinq-Mars 's downfall. He advised 
the king " by fair means or foul, let Richelieu 
die," and the king listened. A conspiracy was 
formed, by Cinq-Mars and others, to do away 
with the cardinal, and even the king, at whose 
death Gaston of Orleans was to be proclaimed 
regent for his nephew, the infant Louis XIV. 

The court went to Narbonne, on the Mediter- 
ranean, that it might be near aid from Spain; 
all of which was a subterfuge of Cinq-Mars. 
The rest moves quickly: Eichelieu discovered 
the plot ; Cinq-Mars attempted to flee disguised 
as a Spaniard, was captured and brought as a 
prisoner to the castle at Montpellier. 

Richelieu had proved the more powerful of 
the two ; but he was dying, and this is the rea- 
son, perhaps, why he hurried matters. Cinq- 
Mars, ' ' the amiable criminal, ' ' went to the tor- 
ture-chamber, and afterward to the scaffold. 

*' Then," say the old chronicles, " Richelieu 
ordered that the feudal castle of Cinq-Mars, in 



232 Old Touraine and the Loire Country 

the valley of the Loire, should be blown up, and 
the towers razed to the height of infamy. ' ' 

From Cinq-Mars to Langeais, whose chateau 
is really one of the most appealing sights of the 
Loire, the characteristics of the country are 
topographically and economically the same; 
green hills slope, vine-covered, to the river, 
with here and there a tiny rivulet flowing into 
the greater stream. 

As at Cinq-Mars, the chief commodity of 
Langeais is wine, rich, red wine and pale 
amber, too, but all of it wine of a quality and 
at a price which would make the city-dweller 
envious indeed. 

There are two distinct chateaux at Langeais ; 
at least, there is the chateau, and just beyond 
the ornamental stone-carpet of its courtyard 
are the ruins of one of the earliest donjons, or 
keeps, in all France. It dates from the year 
990, and was built by the celebrated Comte 
d'Anjou, Foulques Nerra, '' un criminel devoye 
des hommes et de Dieu/' whose hobby, evi- 
dently, was building chateaux, as his '' follies " 
in stone are said to have encumbered the land 
in those old days. 

Taken and retaken, dismantled and in part 
razed in the fifteenth century, it gave place to 
the present chateau by the orders of Louis XI. 




Chateau de Langeais 



Luynes and Langeais 233 

The Chateau de Langeais of to-day is a 
robust example of its kind; its walls, flanked 
by great hooded towers, have a surrounding 
" guette," or gallery, which served as a means 
of communication from one part of the estab- 
lishment to another and, in warlike times, al- 
lowed boiling oil or melted lead, or whatever 
they may have used for the purpose, to be 
poured down upon the heads of any besiegers 
who had the audacity to attack it. 

There is no glacis or moat, but the machico- 
lations, sixty feet or more up from the ground, 
must have afforded a well-nigh perfect means 
of repelling a near attack. 

Altogether Langeais is a redoubtable little 
chateau of the period, and its aspect to-day has 
changed but very little. *' It is the swan-song 
of expiring feudalism," said the Abbe Bosse- 
boeuf. 

One gets a thrill of heroic emotion when he 
views its hardy walls for the first time: '' a 
mountain of stone, a heroic poem of Gothic 
art," it has with reason been called. 

Jean Bourre, the minister of Louis XL, built 
the present chateau about 1460. The chief 
events of its history were the drawing up 
within its walls of the ' ' common law ' ' of Tou- 
raine, by the order of Charles VII., and the 



234 Old Touraine and the Loire Country 

marriage of Charles VIII. with Anne de Bre- 
tagne, on the 16th of December, 1491. 

The land belonged, in 1276, to Pierre de 
Brosse, the minister of Philippe-le-Hardi ; 
later, to Frangois d 'Orleans, son of the cele- 
brated Bdtard; to the Princesse de Conti, 
daughter of the Due de Guise; to the families 
Du Bellay and D 'Effiats, Barons of Cinq-Mars ; 
and, finally, to the Due de Luynes, in whose 
hands it remained up to the Eevolution. 

Honore de Balzac, who may well be called 
one of the historians of Touraine, gave to 
one of his heroines the name of Langeais. To- 
day, however, the family of Langeais does not 
exist, and, indeed, according to the chronicles, 
never had any connection with either the don- 
jon of Foulques Nerra or the chateau of the 
fifteenth century. The present owner is M. 
Jacques Siegfreid, who has admirably restored 
and furnished it after the Gothic style of the 
middle ages. 

The chateau of Langeais, like that of Chenon- 
ceaux, is occupied, as one learns from a visit 
to its interior. A lackey of a superior order 
receives you ; you pay a franc for an admission 
ticket, and the lackey conducts you through 
nearly, if not quite all, of the apartments. 
Where the family goes during this process it is 



Luynes and Langeais 235 

hard to say, but doubtless they are willing to 
inconvenience themselves for the benefit of 
'' touring " humanity. 

The interior, no less than the exterior, im- 
presses one as being something which has lived 
in the past, and yet exists to-day in all its origi- 
nal glory, for the present proprietor, with the 
aid of an admirable adviser, M. Lucien Roy, a 
Parisian architect, has produced a resemblance 
of its former furnishings which, so far as it 
goes, is beyond criticism. 

There is nothing of bareness about it, nor is 
there an over-luxuriant interpolation of irrele- 
vent things, such as a curator crowds into a 
museum. In short, nothing more has been done 
than to attempt to reconstitute a habitation 
of the fifteenth century. For seventeen years 
the work has gone on, and there have been col- 
lected many authentic furnishings contempo- 
rary with the fabric itself, great oaken beds, 
tables, chairs, benches, tapestries, and other 
articles. In addition, the decorations have 
been carried out after the same manner, copied 
in many cases from contemporary pictures and 
prints. 

To-day, the general aspect is that of a peace- 
ful household, with all recollections of feudal 
times banished for ever. All is tranquil, re- 



236 Old Touraine and the Loire Country 

spectable, and luxurious, and it would take a 
chronic faultfinder not to be content with the 
manner with which these admirable restora- 
tions and refurnishings have been carried out. 

One notes particularly the infinite variety 
and appropriateness of the tiling which goes 
to make up the floors of these great salons — 
modern though it is. The great chimneypieces, 
however, are ancient, and have not been re- 
touched. Those in the Salle des Grardes and 
the Salle where was celebrated the marriage 
of Charles VIII. and Anne de Bretagne, with 
their ornamentation in the best of Gothic, are 
especially noteworthy. 

This latter apartment is the chief attraction 
of the chateau and the room of which the pres- 
ent dwellers in this charming monument of 
history are naturally the most proud. To-day 
it forms the great dining-hall of the establish- 
ment. Mementos of this marriage, so momen- 
tous for France, are exceedingly numerous 
along the lower Loire, but this handsome room 
quite leads them all. This marriage, and the 
goods and lands it brought to the Crown, had 
but one stipulation connected with it, and that 
was that the Duchesse Anne should be priv- 
ileged to marry the elderly king's successor, 
should she survive her royal husband. 



Luynes and Langeais 



237 





. B- /VV C A^ ^NLFS. 



^AT • THE'TI ME.Or-THEIR«MARRIA&E: 




238 Old Touraine and the Loire Country 

Louis XII. was not at all opposed to becom- 
ing the husband of la Duchesse Anne after 
Charles VIII. had met his death on the tennis- 
court, because this second marriage would for 
ever bind to France that great province ruled 
by the gentle Anne. 

In the Salle des Gardes are six valuable 
tapestries representing such heroic figures as 
Caesar and Charlemagne, surrounded by their 
companions in arms. 

From the towers, on a clear day, one may see 
the pyramids of the cathedral at Tours rising 
on the horizon to the northward. Below is the 
Chateau de Villandry, where Philippe-Auguste 
met Henry II. of England to conclude a mem- 
orable peace. To the right is Azay-le-Rideau, 
and to the extreme right are the ruined towers 
of Cinq-Mars and its Pile. Nothing could be 
more delicious on a bright summer's day than 
the view from the ramparts of Langeais over 
the roof-tops of the charming little town in the 
foreground. 

Some time after the Revolution there was 
found, in the gardens of the chateau, the re- 
mains of a cJiapelle romaine which historians, 
who have searched the annals of antiquity in 
Touraine, claim to have been the chapel in hon- 
our of St. Sauveur which Foulques V., called 



Luynes and Langeais 239 

le Jeune, one of the five Counts of Anjou of that 
name, constructed upon his return from his 
voyage to Palestine in the twelfth century. 
To-day it is overgrown with a trellised grape- 
vine and is practically not visible, still it is 
another architectural monument of the first 
rank with which the not very ample domain 
of the Chateau de Langeais is endowed. 

From the courtyard the walls of the chateau 
take on a Eenaissance aspect; a tiny doorway 
beside the great gate is manifestly Renais- 
sance; so, too, are the polygonal towers, with 
their winding stairs, the pignons and gables 
of the roof, and what carved stone there is in 
evidence. Three stone stairways which mount 
by the slender tourelles serve to communicate 
with the \^arious floors to-day as they did in the 
times of Charles VIII. 

The courtyard itself, with its formal carpet 
design in stone, its shaded walls, its stone 
seats, and its Eoman sarcophagus, is a pleasant 
retreat, but it has not the seclusion of the larger 
park, delightful though it is. 

Just before the drawbridge of the old cha- 
teau, that mediaeval gateway by which one en- 
ters to-day, one sees the Maison de Eabelais, 
who is the deity of Langeais and Chinon, as is 
Balzac that of Tours. It is a fine old-time 



240 Old Touraine and the Loire Country 

house of a certain amplitude and grandeur 
among its less splendid fellows, now given over, 
on the ground floor, to a bakery and pastry- 
shop. Enough is left of its original aspect, 
and the Renaissance decorations of its fagade 
are sufficiently well preserved to stamp it as a 
worthy abode for the '' Cure de Chinon," who 
lived here for some years. 

Two other names in literature are connected 
with Langeais: Ronsard, the poet, who lived 
here for a time, and Cesar-Alexis-Chichereau, 
Chevalier de la Barre, who was a poet and a 
troubadour of repute. 

The main street of Langeais is still flanked 
with good Gothic and Renaissance houses, 
neither pretentious nor mean, but of that order 
which sets off to great advantage the walls and 
towers and porches of the chateau and the 
church. This street follows the ancient Roman 
roadway which traversed the valley of the 
Loire through Gaul. 

The river is here crossed by one of those 
too frequent, though useful, suspension-bridges, 
with which the Loire abounds. The guide- 
books call it beau, but it is not. One has to 
cross it to reach Azay-le-Rideau, which lies ten 
kilometres or more away across the Indre. 



CHAPTER XII. 

AZAY - LE - EIDEAU, USSE, AND CHINON 

Feom Langeais, one's obvious route lies 
towards CMnon, via Azay-le-Eideau and Usse. 
These latter are practically within the forest, 
though the Foret de Chinon proper does not 
actually begin until one leaves Azay behind, 
when for twenty kilometres or more one of the 
most superb forest roads in France crosses 
many hills and dales until it finally descends 
into Chinon itself. 

Like most forest roads in France, this high- 
way is not flat ; it rises and falls with a sheer 
that is sometimes precipitous, but always with 
a gravelled surface that gives little dust, and 
which absorbs water as the sand from the 
pounce-box of our forefathers dried up ink. 
This simile calls to mind the fact that in twen- 
tieth-century France the pounce-box is still in 
use, notably at wayside railway stations, where 
the agent writes you out your ticket and dries 
it off in a box, not of sand, but of sawdust. 

?41 



242 Old Touraine and the Loire Country 

To partake of the hospitality of Azay-le- 
Rideau one must arrive before four in the 
afternoon, and not earlier than midday. From 
the photographs and post-cards by which one 
has become familiar with Azay-le-Rideau, it 
appears like a great country house sitting by 
itself far away from any other habitation. In 
England this is often the case, in France but 
seldom. 

Clustered around the walls of the not very 
great park which surrounds the chateau are 
all manner of shops and cafes, not of the tour- 
ist order, — for there is very little here to sug- 
gest that tourists ever come, though indeed 
they do, by twos and threes throughout all the 
year, — but for the accommodation of the 
population of the little town itself, which must 
approximate a couple of thousand souls, all 
of whom appear to be engaged in the culture 
of the vine and its attendant pursuits, as the 
wine-presses, the coopers' shops, and other 
similar establishments plainly show. There is, 
moreover, the pleasant smell of fermented 
grape-juice over all, which, like the odour of 
the hop-fields of Kent, is conducive to sleep; 
and there lies the charm of Azay-le-Rideau, 
which seems always half-asleep. 

The Hotel du Grand Monarque is a wonder- 



Azay-le-Rideau, Usse, and Chinon 243 

fully comfortable country inn, with a dining- 
room large enough to accommodate half a hun- 
dred persons, but which, most likely, will serve 
only yourself. One incongruous note is 
sounded, — convenient though it be, — and that 
is the electric light which illuminates the hotel 
and its dependencies, including the stables, 
which look as though they might once have 
been a part of a mediaeval chateau themselves. 

However, since posting days and tallow dips 
have gone for ever, one might as well content 
himself with the superior civilization which 
confronts him, and be comfortable at least. 

The Chateau d'Azay-le-Eideau is one of the 
gems of Touraine's splendid collection of Ee- 
naissance art treasures, though by no means is 
it one of the grandest or most imposing. 

A tree-lined avenue leads from the village 
street to the chateau, which sits in the midst 
of a tiny park ; not a grand expanse as at Cham- 
bord or Chenonceaux, but a sort of green frame 
with a surrounding moat, fed by the waters 
of the Indre. 

The main building is square, with a great 
coiffed round tower at each corner. The Abbe 
Chevalier, in his '* Promenades Pittoresques 
en Touraine," called it the purest and best of 
French Eenaissance, and such it assuredly is, 



244 Old Touraine and the Loire Country 

if one takes a not too extensive domestic estab- 
lishment of the early years of the sixteenth 
century as the typical example. 

Undoubtedly the sylvan surroundings of the 
chateau have a great deal to do with the effect- 
iveness of its charms. The great white walls 
of its fagade, with the wonderful sculptures 
of Jean Goujon, glisten in the brilliant sunlight 
of Touraine through the sycamores and willows 
which border the Indre in a genuinely romantic 
fashion. 

Somewhere within the walls are the remains 
of an old tower of the one-time fortress which 
was burned by the Dauphin Charles in 1418, 
after, says history, '' he had beheaded its gov- 
ernor and taken all of the defenders to the 
number of three hundred and thirty-four." 
This act was in revenge for an alleged insult 
to his sacred person. 

There are no remains of this former tower 
visible exteriorly to-day, and no other bloody 
acts appear to have attached themselves to the 
present chateau in all the four hundred years 
of its existence. 

Gilles Berthelot erected the present structure 
early in the reign of Frangois I. He was a 
man close to the king in affairs of state, first 
conseiller-secretaire, then tresorier-general des 



•#-'->< J.K'-'J-*". 




Chateau d! Azay-le-Rldeau 



Azay-le-Rideau, Usse, and Chinon 245 

finances, hence he knew the value of money. 
Among the succeeding proprietors" was Guy de 
Saint Gelais, one of the most accomplished 
diplomats of his time. He was followed by 
Henri de Beringhem, who built the stables and 
ornamented the great room known as the 
Chambre du Roi from the fact that Louis XIV. 
once slept there, with the magnificent paintings 
which are shown to-day. 

Everywhere is there a rich, though not gross, 
display of decoration, beginning with such con- 
structive details as the pointed-roofed tourelles, 
which are themselves exceedingly decorative. 
The doors, windows, roof-tops, chimneypieces, 
and the semi-enclosed circular stairways are 
all elaborately sculptured after the best manner 
of the time. 

The entrance portico is a wonder of its kind, 
with a strong sculptured arcade and arched 
window-openings and niches filled with bas- 
reliefs. Sculptured shells, foliage, and myth- 
ological symbols combine to form an arabesque, 
through which are interspersed the favourite 
ciphers of the region, the ermine and the sala- 
mander, which go to prove that Frangois and 
other royalties must at one time or another 
have had some connection with the chateau. 

History only tells us, however, that Gilles 



246 Old Touraine and the Loire Country 

Berthelot was a king's minister and Mayor 
of Tours. Perhaps he thought of handing it 
over as a gift some day in exchange for further 
honours. His device bore the words, " Ung 
Seul Desir/' which may or may not have had 
a special significance. 

The interior of the edifice is as beautiful as 
is its exterior, and is furnished with that luxuri- 
ance of decorative effect so characteristic of 
the best era of the Renaissance in France. 

Until recently the proprietor was the Mar- 
quis de Biencourt, who, like his fellow proprie- 
tors of chateaux in Touraine, generously gave 
visitors an opportunity to see his treasure- 
house for themselves, and, moreover, furnished 
a guide who was something more than a menial 
and yet not a supercilious functionary. 

Within a twelvemonth this '^ purest joy of 
the French Renaissance " was put upon the 
real estate market, with the result that it might 
have fallen into unappreciative hands, or, what 
a Touraine antiquarian told the writer would 
be the worse fate that could possibly befall it, 
might be bought up by some American million- 
aire, who through the services of the house- 
breaker would dismantle it and remove it stone 
by stone and set it up anew on some asphalted 
avenue in some western metropolis. This ex- 



Azay-le-Eideau, Usse, and Chinon 247 

traordinary fear or rumour, whatever it was, 
soon passed away and as a ^^ monument histo- 
rique " the chateau has become the property 
of the French government. 

Less original, perhaps, in plan than Chenon- 
ceaux, less appealing in its ensemble and less 
fortunate in its situation, Azay-le-Rideau is 
nevertheless entitled to the praises which have 
been heaped upon it. 

It is but a dozen kilometres from Azay-le- 
Eideau to Usse, on the road to Chinon. The 
Chateau d'Usse is indeed a big thing; not so 
grand as Chambord, nor so winsome as Lan- 
geais, but infinitely more characteristic of what 
one imagines a great residential chateau to 
have been like. It belongs to-day to the Comte 
de Blacas, and once was the property of Vau- 
ban, Marechal of France, under Louis XIV., 
who built the terrace which lies between it and 
the river, a branch of the Indre. 

Perched high above the hemp-lands of the 
river-bottom, which here are the most prolific 
in the valley of the Indre, the chateau with its 
park of seven hundred or more acres is truly 
regal in its appointments and surroundings. 
This park extends to the boundary of the 
national reservation, the Foret de Chinon. 

The Renaissance chateau of to-day is a recon- 



248 Old Touraine and the Loire Country 

struction of the sixteenth century, which pre- 
serves, however, the great cylindrical towers of 
a century earlier. Its architecture is on the 
whole fantastic, at least as much so as Cham- 
bord, but it is none the less hardy and strong. 
Practically it consists of a series of pavilions 
bound to the great fifteenth-century donjon 
by smaller towers and turrets, all slate-capped 
and pointed, with machicolations surrounding 
them, and above that a sort of roofed and 
crenelated battlement which passes like a 
collar around all the outer wall. 

The general effect of the exterior walls is 
that of a great feudal stronghold, while from 
the courtyard the aspect is simply that of a 
luxurious Eenaissance town house, showing at 
least how the two styles can be pleasingly com- 
bined. 

Crenelated battlements are as old as Pom- 
peii, so it is doubtful if the feudality of France 
did much to increase their use or effectiveness. 
They were originally of such dimensions as to 
allow a complete shelter for an archer stand- 
ing behind one of the uprights. The contrast 
to those of a later day, which, virtually nothing 
more than a course of decorative stonework, 
give no impression of utility, is great, though 







Chateau d'Usse 



Azay-le-Rideau, Usse, and Chinon 249 

here at Usse they are more pronounced than in 
many other similar edifices. 

The interior arrangements here give due 
prominence to a fine staircase, ornamented with 
a painting of St. John that is attributed to 
Michel Ange. 

The Chambre du Eoi is hung with ancient 
embroideries, and there is a beautiful Renais- 
sance chapel, above the door of which is a six- 
teenth-century bas-relief of the Apostles. Most 
of the other great rooms which are shown are 
resplendent in oak-beamed ceilings and massive 
chimneypieces, always a distinct feature of 
Renaissance chateau-building, and one which 
makes modern imitations appear mean and 
ugly. To realize this to the full one has only 
to recall the dining-room of the pretentious 
hotel which huddles under the walls of Am- 
boise. In a photograph it looks like a regal 
banqueting-hall ; but in reality it is as tawdry 
as stage scenery, with its imitation wainscoted 
walls, its imitation beamed ceiling of three- 
quarter-inch planks, and its plaster of Paris 
fireplace. 

Near Usse is the Chateau de Rochecotte 
which recalls the name of a celebrated chief- 
tain of the Chouans. It belongs to-day, though 
it is not their paternal home, to the family of 



250 Old Touraine and the Loire Country 

Castellane, a name which to many is quite asj 
celebrated and perhaps better known. 

The chateau contains a fine collection of 
Dutch painting's of the seventeenth century, and | 
in its chapel there is a remarkably beautiful 
copy of the Sistine Madonna. The name of' 
Talleyrand is intimately connected with the 
occupancy of the chateau, in pre-revolutionary 
times, by Eochecotte. 

On the road to Chinon one passes through, 
or near, Huismes, which has nothing to stay 
one's march but a good twelfth-century church, 
which looks as though its doors were never 
opened. The Chateau de la Villaumere, of the 
fifteenth century, is near by, and of more than 
passing interest are the ruins of the Chateau 
de Bonneventure, built, it is said, by Charles 
VII. for Agnes Sorel, who, with all her faults, 
stands high in the esteem of most lovers of 
French history. At any rate this shrine of 
'^ la belle des belles " is worthy to rank with 
that containing her tomb at Loches. 

As one enters Chinon by road he meets with 
the usual steep decline into a river-valley, 
which separates one height from another. 
Generally this is the topographic formation 
throughout France, and Chinon, with its silent 
guardians, the fragments of three non-con- 



Azay-le-Rideau, Usse, and Chinon 251 

temporary castles, all on the same site, is no 
exception. 

" We never went to CMnon," says Henry 
James, in Ms ' ' Little Tour in France, ' ' written 
thirty or more years ago. " But one cannot do 
everything," he continues, " and I would 
rather have missed Chinon than Chenonceaux. " 
A painter would have put it differently. Che- 
nonceaux is all that fact and fancy have painted 
it, a gem in a perfect setting, and Chinon 's 
three castles are but mere crumbling walls; 
but their environs form a petit pays which will 
some day develop into an " artists' sketching- 
ground," in years to come, beside which Etre- 
tat, Moret, Pont Aven, Giverny, and Auvers 
will cease to be considered. 

At the base of the escarped rock on which 
sit the chateaux, or what is left of them, lies 
the town of Chinon, with its old houses in 
wood and stone and its great, gaunt, but beauti- 
ful churches. Before it flows the Vienne, one 
of the most romantically beautiful of all the 
secondary rivers of France. 

From the castrwm romanum of the em- 
perors to the feudal conquest Chinon played its 
due part in the history of Touraine. There 
are those who claim that Chinon is a '' cite an- 
tediluvienne " and that it was founded by Cain, 



252 Old Touraine and the Loire Country 

who after his crime fled from the paternal male- 
diction and found a refuge here; and that its 
name, at first Caynon, became Chinon. Like 
the derivation of most ancient place-names, this 
claim involves a wide imagination and as- 
suredly sounds unreasonable. Caino may, with 
more likelihood, have been a Celtic word, mean- 
ing an excavation, and came to be adopted be- 
cause of the subterranean quarries from which 
the stone was drawn for the building of the 
town. The annalists of the western empire 
give it as Castrum-Caino, and whether its 
origin dates from antediluvian times or not, it 
was a town in the very earliest days of the 
Christian era. 

The importance of Chinon 's role in history 
and the beauty of its situation have inspired 
many writers to sing its praises. 

«... Chinon 
Petite ville, grand renom 
Assise snr pierre ancienne 
Au haute le bois, an bas la Vienne." 

The disposition of the town is most pic- 
turesque. The winding streets and stairways 
are ' ' foreign ; ' ' like Italy, if you will, or some 
of the steps to be seen in the towns bordering 
upon the Adriatic. At all events, Chinon is not 




The Roof-tops of Chin on 



Azay-le-Rideau, Usse, and Chinon 253 

exactly like any other town in France, either 
with respect to its layout or its distinct fea- 
tures, and it is not at all like what one com- 
monly supposes to be characteristic of the 
French. 

Dungeons of mediaeval chateaux are here 
turned into dwellings and wine-cellars, and 
have the advantage, for both uses, of being cool 
in summer and warm in winter. 

Already, in the year 371, Chinon 's popula- 
tion was so considerable that St. Martin, newly 
elected Bishop of Tours, longed to preach 
Christianity to its people, who were still idola- 
tors. Some years afterward St. Mesme or 
Maxime, fleeing from the barbarians of the 
north, came to Chinon, and soon surrounded 
himself with many adherents of the faith, and 
in the year 402 consecrated the original founda- 
tion of the church which now bears his name. 

Clovis made Chinon one of the strongest for- 
tresses of his kingdom, and in the tenth cen- 
tury it came into the possession of the Comtes 
de Touraine. Later, in 1044, Thibaut III. 
ceded it to Geoffroy Martel. The Plantage- 
nets frequently sojourned at Chinon, becoming 
its masters in the twelfth century, from which 
time it was held by the Kings of France up to 
Louis XL 



254 Old Touraine and the Loire Country 

The most picturesque event of Chinon's his- 
tory took place in 1428, when Charles VII. here 
assembled the States General, and Jeanne 
d'Arc prevailed upon him to march forthwith 
upon Orleans, then besieged by the English. 

Memories of Charles VII., of Jeanne d'Arc, 
and of Frangois Rabelais are inextricably 
mixed in the guide-book accounts of Chinon; 
but their respective histories are not so in- 
volved as would appear. There is some doubt 
as to whether the Pantagruelist was actually 
born at Chinon or in the suburbs, therefore 
there is no '' maison natale " before which 
literary pilgrims may make their devotions. 
All this is a great pity, for Rabelais excites in 
the minds of most people a greater curiosity 
than perhaps any other mediaeval man of letters 
that the world has known. 

Though one cannot feast his eye upon the 
spot of Rabelais 's birth, historians agree that 
it took place at Chinon in 1483. Much is known 
of the ' ' Cure de Chinon ; ' ' but, in spite of his 
rank as the first of the mediaeval satirists, his 
was not a wide-spread popularity, nor can one 
speak very highly of his appearance as a type 
of the Tourangeau of his time. His portraits 
make him appear a most supercilious charac- 
ter, and doubtless he was. He certainly was 



Azay-le-Eideau, Usse, and Chinon 255 



'V "i, 'V ;. E ; 1. ■"!, 1 1 1 ■"' 'f If "|! Ill '11 ■;;■ 'i| i' ■?, "i| iki f n ii:.t ii'imii 7 1 n m 1 1 ii fi 

i' "' I' 'I 1 I ', .' I : ' |, I I I ,1 I ; ' ,■ 1! 1! j ,il ,1' i|i' |l , I 7 I „' 1 1 ■! ,1 I ,|i ■" ' ,|l 1!!' J' 



/',!!! 




256 Old Touraine and the Loire Country 

not an Adonis, nor had he the head of a god 
or the cleverness of a court gallant. Indeed 
there has been a tendency of late to represent 
him as a buffoon, a trait wholly foreign to 
his real character. 

As for Charles VII. and Jeanne d'Arc, Chi- 
non was simply the meeting-place between the 
inspired maid and her sovereign, when she 
urged him to put himself at the head of his 
troops and march upon Orleans. 

Chinon is of the sunny south; here the 
grapes ripen early and cling affectionately, not 
only to the hillsides, but to the very house-walls 
themselves. 

Chinon 's attractions consist of fragments of 
three castles, dating from feudal times; of 
three churches, of more than ordinary interest 
and picturesqueness ; and many old timbered 
and gabled houses; nor should one forget the 
Hotel de France, itself a reminder of other 
days, with its vine-covered courtyard and tin- 
kling bells hanging beneath its gallery, for all 
the world like the sort of thing one sees upon 
the stage. 

There is not much else about the hotel that 
is of interest except its very ancient-looking 
high-posted beds and its waxed tiled floors, 
worn into smooth ruts by the feet of countless 



Azay-le-Rideau, Usse, and Chinon 257 

thousands and by countless polishings with wax. 
It is curious how a waxed tiled floor strikes 
one as being something altogether superior to 
one of wood. Though harder in substance, it is 
infinitely pleasanter to the feet, and warm and 
mellow, as a floor should be ; moreover it seems 
to have the faculty of unconsciously keeping 
itself clean. 

The Chateau de Chinon, as it is commonly 
called, differs greatly from the usual Loire 
chateau; indeed it is quite another variety al- 
together, and more like what we know else- 
where as a castle ; or, rather it is three castles, 
for each^ so far as its remains are concerned, 
is distinct and separate. 

The Chateau de St. Georges is the most an- 
cient and is an enlargement by Henry Plan- 
tagenet — whom a Frenchman has called ^' the 
King Lear of his race " — of a still more an- 
cient fortress. 

The Chateau du Milieu is built upon the ruins 
of the castrum romanum, vestiges of which are 
yet visible. It dates from the eleventh, twelfth, 
and thirteenth centuries, and was restored 
under Charles VI., Charles VII., and Louis XL 

One enters through the curious Tour de 
I'Horloge, to which access is given by a modern 
bridge, as it was in other days by an ancient 



258 Old Touraine and the Loire Country 

drawbridge which covered the old-time moat. 
The Grand Logis, the royal habitation of the 
twelfth to fifteenth centuries, is to the right, 
overlooking the town. Here died Henry II. of 
England (1189) and here lived Charles VII. 
and Louis XI. It was in the G-rand Salle of this 
chateau that Jeanne d'Arc was first presented 
to her sovereign (March 8, 1429). From the 
hour of this auspicious meeting until the hour 
of the departure for Orleans she herself lived in 
the tower of the Chateau de Coudray, a little 
farther beyond, under guard of Guillaume 
Belier. 

The meeting between the king and the 
" Maid " is described by an old historian of 
Touraine as follows : ' ' The inhabitants of 
Chinon received her with enthusiasm, the pur- 
pose of her mission having already preceded 
her. . . . She appeared at court as ' une 
pauvre petite bergerette ' and was received in 
the Grande Salle, lighted by fifty torches and 
containing three hundred persons." (This 
statement would seem to point to the fact that 
it was not the salle which is shown to-day; it 
certainly could not be made to hold three hun- 
dred people unless they stood on each other's 
shoulders!) '' The seigneurs were all clad in 
magnificent robes, but the king, on the contrary, 















Chateau de Chinon 




Azay-le-Rideau, Usse, and Chinon 259 

was dressed most simply. The * Maid/ en- 
dowed with a spirit and sagacity superior to 
her education, advanced without hesitation. 
* Dieu vous donne bonne vie, gentil roi/ said 
she. ..." 

The Grand Logis is flanked by a square tower 
which is separated from the Chateau de Cou- 
dray and the Tour de Boissy by a moat. In the 
magnificent Tour de Boissy was the ancient 
Salle des Gardes, while above was a battle- 
mented gallery which gave an outlook over the 
surrounding country. This watch-tower as- 
sured absolute safety from surprise to any 
monarch who might have wished to study the 
situation for himself. 

The Tour du Moulin is another of the de- 
fences, more elegant, if possible, than the Tour 
de Boissy. It is taller and less rotund; the 
French say it is " svelt/' and that describes 
it as well as anything. It also fits into the land- 
scape in a manner which no other mediaeval 
donjon of France does, unless it be that of Cha- 
teau Gaillard, in Normandy. 

The primitive Chateau de Coudray was built 
by Thibaut-le-Tricheur in 954, and its bastion 
and sustaining walls are still in evidence. 

The Vienne, which runs by Chinon to join the 
Loire above Saumur, is, in many respects, a re- 



260 Old Touraine and the Loire Country 

markable river, althougk just here there is 
nothing very remarkable about it. It is, how- 
ever, delightfully picturesque, as it washes the 
tree-lined quays which form Chinon's river- 
front for a distance of upward of two kilo- 
metres. In general the waterway reminds one 
of something between a great traffic-bearing 
river and a mere pleasant stream. 

The bridge between Chinon and its faubourg 
is typical of the art of bridge-building, at which, 
in mediaeval times, the French were excelled by 
no other nation. To-day, in company with the 
Americans, they build iron and steel abomina- 
tions which are eyesores which no amount of 
utility will ever induce one to really admire. 
Not so the French bridges of mediaeval times, 
of the type of those at Blois on the Loire ; at 
Chinon on the Vienne; at Avignon on the 
Ehone; or at Cahors on the Lot. 

If Rabelais had not rendered popular Chinon 
and the Chinonais the public would have yet to 
learn of this delightful pays, in spite of that 
famous first meeting between Charles VII. and 
Jeanne d'Arc. 

If the modern founders of '^ garden-cities " 
would only go as far back as the time of Riche- 
lieu they would find a good example to follow 
in the little Touraine town, the chef-lieu of the 



Azay-le-Rideau, Usse, and Chinon 261 

Commune, which bears the name of Richelieu. 
When Armand du Plessis first became the 
seigneur of this " little land '^ he resolutely set 
about to make of the property a town which 
should dignify his name. Accordingly he built, 
at his own expense, after the plans of Lemer- 
cier, " a city, regular, vast, and luxurious." 
At the same time the cardinal-minister re- 
placed the paternal manor with a chateau elab- 
orately and prodigally royal. 

Richelieu was a sort of '^ petit Versailles," 
which was to be to Chinon what the real Ver- 
sailles was to the capital. 

To-day, as in other days, it is a ^^ ville vaste, 
reguliere et luxueuse/' but it is unfinished. One 
great street only has been completed on its 
original lines, and it is exactly 450 metres long. 
Originally the town was to have the dimensions 
of but six hundred by four hundred metres; 
modest enough in size, but of the greatest lux- 
ury. The cardinal had no desire to make it 
more grand, but even what he had planned was 
not to be. Its one great street is bordered with 
imposing buildings, but their tenants to-day 
have not the least resemblance to the courtiers 
of the cardinal who formerly occupied them. 

Richelieu disappeared in the course of time, 
and work on his hobby stopped, or at least 



262 Old Touraine and the Loire Country 

changed radically in its plan. Secondary- 
streets were laid out, of less grandeur, and 
peopled with houses without character, low in 
stature, and unimposing. The plan of a ville 
seigneuriale gave way to a ville de labeur. 
Other habitations grew up until to-day twenty- 
five hundred souls find their living on the spot 
where once was intended to be only a life of 
luxury. 

Of the monuments with which Richelieu 
would have ornamented his town there remains 
a curious market-hall and a church in the pure 
Jesuitic style of architecture, lacking nothing 
of pretence and grandeur. 

Not much can be said for the vast Eglise 
Notre Dame de Richelieu, a heavy Italian struc- 
ture, built from the plans of Lemercier. How- 
ever satisfying and beautiful the style may be 
in Italy, it is manifestly, in all great works of 
church-building in the north, unsuitable and un- 
couth. 

There was also a chateau as well, a great 
Mansart affair with an overpowering dome. 
Practically this remains to-day, but, like all 
else in the town, it is but a promise of greater 
things which were expected to materialize, but 
never did. 

At the bottom of a little valley, in a fertile 



Azay-le-Rideau, Usse, and Chinon 263 

plain, lies Fontevrault, or what there is left of 
it, for the old abbey is now nothing more than 
a matter-of-fact " maison de detention " for 
criminals. The abbey of yesterday is the 
prison of to-day. 

Fontevranlt is an enigma ; it is, furthermore, 
what the French themselves call a '' triste et 
maussade hourg." Its former magnificent 
abbey was one of the few shrines of its class 
which was respected by the Revolution, but 
now it has become a prison which shelters 
something like a thousand unfortunates. 

For centuries the old abbey had royal prin- 
cesses for abbesses and was one of the most 
celebrated religious houses in all France. It 
is a sad degeneration that has befallen this 
famous establishment. 

In the eleventh century an illustrious man of 
God, a Breton priest, named Robert d'Ar- 
brissel, outlined the foundation of the abbey 
and gathered together a community of monks. 
He died in the midst of his labours, in 1117, and 
was succeeded by the Abbess Petronille de 
Chemille. 

For nearly six hundred years the abbey — 
which comprised a convent for men and an- 
other for women — grew and prospered, di- 
rected, not infrequently, by an abbess of the 



264 Old Touraine and the Loire Country 

blood royal. It has been claimed that, as a re- 
ligious establishment for men and women, ruled 
over by a woman, the abbey of Fontevrault was 
unique in Christendom. 

It is an ample structure with a church tower 
of bistre which forms a most pleasing note 
of colour in the landscape. The basilica was 
begun in 1101, and consecrated by Pope Calix- 
tus II. in 1119. Its interior showed a deep 
vaulting, with graceful and hardy arches sup- 
ported by massive columns with quaint and 
curiously sculptured capitals. 

The twelfth-century cloister was indeed a 
masterwork among those examples, all too 
rare, existing to-day. Its arcade is severely 
elegant and was rebuilt by the Abbess Eenee de 
Bourbon, sister of Frangois I., after the best 
of decorative Renaissance of that day. The 
chapter-house, now used by the director of the 
prison, has in a remarkable manner retained 
the mural frescoes of a former day. There are 
depicted a series of groups of mystical and real 
personages in a most curious fashion. The re- 
fectory is still much in its primitive state, 
though put to other uses to-day. Its tribune, 
where the lectrice entertained the sisters during 
their repasts, is, however, still in its place. 

The curious, bizarre, kilnlike pyramid, 



Azay-le-Rideau, Usse, and Chinon 265 




Cuisines, Fontevrault 



266 Old Touraine and the Loire Country 

known as the Tour d'Evrault, has ever been an 
enigma to the archaeologist and antiquarian. 
Doubtless it formed the kitchens of the estab- 
lishment, for it looks like nothing else that 
might have belonged to a great abbey. It has 
a counterpart at the Abbey of Marmoutier near 
Tours, and of St. Trinite at Vendome; from 
which fact there would seem to be little doubt 
as to its real use, although it looks more like 
a blast furnace or a distillery chimney. 

This curious pyramidal structure is like the 
collegiate church of St. Ours at Loches, one of 
those bizarre edifices which defy any special 
architectural classification. At Fontevrault the 
architect played with his art when he let all the 
light in this curious " tour " enter by the roof. 
At the extreme apex of the cone he placed a 
lantern from which the light of day filtered 
down the slope of the vaulting in a weird and 
tomblike manner. It is a most surprising 
effect, but one that is wholly lost to-day, since 
the Tour d'Evrault has been turned into the 
kitchen for the " maison de detention " of 
which it forms a part. 

The nave of the church of the old abbey of 
Fontevrault has been cut in two and a part is 
now used as the dormitory of the prison, but 
the choir, the transepts, and the towers remain 



Azay-le-Rideau, Usse, and Chinon 267 

to suggest the simple and beautiful style of 
their age. 

In the transepts, behind an iron grille, are 
buried Henry II., King of England and Count 
of Anjou, Eleanore of Guienne, Eichard Coeur 
de Lion, and Isabeau of Angouleme, wife of 
Jean-sans-Terre. Four polychromatic statues, 
one in wood, the others in stone, lying at length, 
represent these four personages so great in 
English history, and make of Fontevrault a 
shrine for pilgrims which ought to be far less 
ignored than it is. The cemetery of kings has 
been shockingly cared for, and the ludicrous 
kaleidoscopic decorations of the statues which 
surmount the royal tombs are nothing less than 
a sacrilege. It is needless to say they are com- 
paratively modern. 

At Bourgueil, near Fontevrault, are gathered 
great crops of reglisse, or licorice. It differs 
somewhat in appearance from the licorice 
roots of one's childhood, but the same qualities 
exist in it as in the product of Spain or the 
Levant, whence indeed most of the commercial 
licorice does come. It is as profitable an in- 
dustry in this part of France as is the saffron 
crop of the Gatinais, and whoever imported the 
first roots was a benefactor. At the juncture 
of the Vienne and the Loire are two tiny towns 



268 Old Touraine and the Loire Country 

which are noted for two widely different rea- 
sons. 

These two towns are Montsoreau and 
Candes, the former noted for the memory of 
that bloodthirsty woman who gave a plot to 
Dumas (and some real facts of history be- 
sides), and the other noted for its prunes, 
Candes being the chief centre of the industry 
which produces the pruneaux de Tours. 

Descending the Vienne from Chinon, one first 
comes to Candes, which dominates the conflu- 
ence of the Vienne with the Loire from its 
imposing position on the top of a hill. 

Candes was in other times surrounded by 
a protecting wall, and there are to-day remains 
of a chateau which had formerly given shelter 
to Charles VII. and Louis XL It has, more- 
over, a twelfth-century church built upon the 
site of the cell in which died St. Martin in the 
fourth century. The native of the surround- 
ing country cares nothing for churches or cha- 
teaux, but assumes that the prune industry of 
Candes is the one thing of interest to the vis- 
itor. 

Be this as it may, it is indeed a matter of 
considerable importance to all within a dozen 
kilometres of the little town. All through the 
region round about Candes one meets with the 



Azay-le-Rideau, Usse, and Chinon 269 

fruit-pickers, with their great baskets laden 
with prunes, pears, and apples, to be sent ulti- 
mately to the great ovens to be desiccated and 
dried. Fifty years ago, you will be told, the 
cultivators attended to the curing process them- 
selves, but now it is in the hands of the middle- 
man. 

At Montsoreau much the same economic con- 
ditions exist as at Candes, but there is vastly 
more of historic lore hanging about the town. 
In the fourteenth century, after a shifting ca- 
reer, the fief passed to the Vicomtes de Cha- 
teaudun; then, in the century following, to the 
Chabots and the family of Chambes, of which 
Jean IV., prominent in the massacre of St. 
Bartholomew's night, was a member. It was 
he who assassinated the gallant Bussy d'Am- 
boise at the near-by Chateau of Coutanciere 
(at Brain-sur-Allonnes), who had made a ren- 
dezvous with his wife, since become famous in 
the pages of Dumas and of history as "La 
Dame de Montsoreau." 

To-day the old bourg is practically non-ex- 
istent, and there is a smugness of prosperity 
which considerably discounts the former charm 
that it once must have had. But for all that, 
there is enough left to enable one to picture 



270 Old Touraine and the Loire Country 

what the life here under the Renaissance must 
have been. 

The parish church — that of the ancient Pa- 
roisse de Eetz — still exists, though in ruins, 
and there are very substantial remains of an 
old priory, an old-time dependency of the Abbey 
of St. Florent, now converted into a farm. 

Beside the highroad is the fifteenth-century 
chateau. It has a double fagade, one side of 
which is ornamented with a series of machi- 
coulis, great high window-openings, and flank- 
ing towers ; and, in spite of its generally frown- 
ing aspect, looks distinctly livable even to-day. 

The ornamental fa§ade of the courtyard is 
somewhat crumbled but still elegant, and has 
incorporated within its walls a most ravishing 
Renaissance turret, smothered in exquisite 
moulures and arabesques. On the terminal gal- 
lery and on the panels which break up the flat- 
ness of this inner fa§ade are a series of alle- 
gorical bas-reliefs, representing monkeys, sur- 
mounted with the inscription, ^'11 le Feray." 

The interior of this fine edifice is entirely 
remodelled, and has nothing of its former fit- 
ments, furnishings, or decorations. 

Near Port Boulet, almost opposite Candes, 
is the great farm of a certain M. Gail. Com- 
munication is had with the Orleans railway by 



Azay-le-Rideau, Usse, and Chinon 271 

means of a traction engine, which draws its 
own broad- wheeled wagons on the regular high- 
way between the gare d'hommes and the tall- 
chimneyed manor or chateau which forms the 
residence of this enterprising agriculturist. 

The property consists of nearly two thousand 
acres, of which at least twelve hundred are 
under the process of intensive cultivation, and 
is divided into ten distinct farms, having each 
an overseer charged directly with the control 
of his part of the domain. These farms are 
wonderfully well kept, with sanded roadways 
like the courtyard of a chateau. There are 
no trees in the cultivated parts, and the great 
grain-fields are as the western prairies. 

The estate bears the generic name of "La 
Briche." On one side it is bordered by the 
railroad for a distance of nearly forty kilo- 
metres, and it gives to that same railway an 
annual freight traffic of two thousand tons of 
merchandise, which would be considerably more 
if all the cattle and sheep sent to other markets 
were transported by rail. 

As might be expected, this domain of "La 
Briche ' ' has given to the neighbouring farmers 
a lesson and an example, and little by little its 
influence has resulted in an increased activity 



272 Old Touraine and the Loire Country 

among the neighbouring landholders, who for- 
merly gave themselves over to " la chasse," 
and left the conduct of their farms to incom- 
petent and more or less ignorant hirelings. 



CHAPTER XIII. 



ANJOU AND BEETAGNE 



As one crosses the borderland from Touraine 
into Anjou, the whole aspect of things changes. 
It is as if one went from the era of the Renais- 
sance back again into the days of the Gothic, 
not only in respect to architecture, but history 
and many of the conditions of every-day life as 
well. 

Most of the characteristics of Anjou are 
without their like elsewhere, and opulent Anjou 
of ancient France has to-day a departmental 
etiquette in many things quite different from 
that of other sections. 

A magnificent agricultural province, it has 
been further enriched by liberal proprietors ; a 
land of aristocracy and the church, it has ever 
been to the fore in political and ecclesiastical 
matters ; and to-day the spirit of industry and 
progress are nowhere more manifest than here 
in the ancient province of Anjou. 

The Loire itself changes its complexion but 

273 



274 Old Touraine and the Loire Country 

little, and its entrance into Samnur, like its 
entrance into Tours, is made between banks 
that are tinged :with the rainbow colours of the 
growing vine. What hills there are near by 
are burrowed, as swallows burrow in a cliff, 
by the workers of the vineyards, who make in 
the rock homes similar to those below Saumur, 
in the Vallee du Vendomois, and at Cinq-Mars 
near Tours. 

Anjou has a marked style in architecture, 
known as Angevin, which few have properly 
placed in the gamut of architectural styles 
which run from the Byzantine to the Renais- 
sance. 

The Romanesque was being supplanted 
everywhere when the Angevin style came into 
being, as a compromise between the heavy, 
flat-roofed style of the south and the pointed 
sky-piercing gables of the north. All Europe 
was attempting to shake off the Romanesque 
influence, which had lasted until the twelfth 
century. Germany alone clung to the pure 
style, and, it is generally thought, improved 
it. The Angevin builders developed a species 
that was on the borderland between the Roman- 
esque and the Grothic, though not by any means 
a mere transition type. 

The chief cities of Anjou are not very great 



Anjou and Bretagne 275 

or numerous, Angers itself containing but 
slightly over fifty thousand souls. Cholet, of 
thirteen thousand inhabitants, is an important 
cloth-manufacturing centre, while Saumur car- 
ries on a great wine trade and was formerly 
the capital of a '^ petit gouvernement " of its 
own, and, like many other cities and towns of 
this and neighbouring provinces, was the scene 
of great strife during the wars of the Ven- 
dee. 

In ancient times the Andecavi, as the old 
peoples of the province were known, shared 
with the Turonii of Touraine the honour of 
being the foremost peoples of western Gaul, 
though each had special characteristics pecul- 
iarly their own, as indeed they have to-day. 

After one passes the junction of the Cher, 
the Indre, and the Vienne, he notices no great 
change in the conduct of the Loire itself. It 
still flows in and out among the banks of sand 
and those little round pebbles known all along 
its course, nonchalantly and slowly, though now 
and then one fancies that he notes a greater 
eddy or current than he had observed before. 
At Saumur it is still more impressed upon one, 
while at the Fonts de Ce — a great strategic 
spot in days gone by — there is evidence that 
at one time or another the Loire must be a 



276 Old Touraine and the Loire Country 

raging torrent; and such it does become peri- 
odically, only travellers never seem to see it 
when it is in this condition. 

When Candes and Montsoreau are passed 
and one comes under the frowning walls of 
Saumur's grim citadel, a sort of provincial 
Bastille in its awesomeness, he realizes for the 
first time that there is, somewhere below, an 
outlet to the sea. He cannot smell the salt- 
laden breezes at this great distance, but the 
general appearance of things gives that impres- 
sion. 

From Tours to Saumur by the right bank of 
the Loire — one of the most superb stretches 
of automobile roadway in the world — lay the 
road of which Madame de Sevigne wrote in 
'' Lettre CCXXIV. " (to her mother), which 
begins: ^' Nous arrivons ici, nous avons quittS 
Tours ce matin." It was a good day's journey 
for those times, whether by malle-post or 
the private conveyance which, likely enough, 
Madame de Sevigne used at the time (1630). 
To-day it is a mere morsel to the hungry road- 
devouring maw of a twentieth-century auto- 
mobile. It's almost worth the labour of mak- 
ing the journey on foot to know the charms of 
this delightful river-bank bordered with his- 
toric shrines almost without number, and peo- 







Chateau de Saumur 



Anjou and Bretagne 277 

pled by a class of peasants as picturesque and 
gay as the Neapolitan of romance. 

'^ Saumur est, ma foi! une jolie ville," said 
a traveller one day at a table d'hote at Tours. 
And so indeed it is. Its quays and its squares 
lend an air of gaiety to its proud old hotel de 
ville and its grim chateau. Old habitations, 
commodious modern houses, frowning machi- 
colations, church spires, grand hotels, innu- 
merable cafes, and much military, all combine 
in a blend of fascinating interest that one usu- 
ally finds only in a great metropolis. 

The chief attraction is unquestionably the 
old chateau. To-day it stands, as it has always 
stood, high above the Quai de Limoges, with 
scarce a scar on its hardy walls and never a 
crumbling stone on its parapet. 

The great structure was begun in the elev- 
enth century, replacing an earlier monument 
known as the Tour du Tronc. It was com- 
pleted in the century following and rebuilt or 
remodelled in the sixteenth. Outside of its 
impressive exterior there is little of interest 
to remind one of another day. 

To literary pilgrims Saumur suggests the 
homestead of the father of Eugenie Grandet, 
and the hon-vivant reveres it for its soft pleas- 
ant wines. Others worship it for its wonders 



278 Old Touraine and the Loire Country 

of architecturGj and yet others fall in love with 
it because of its altogether delightful situation. 

Below Saumur are the cliff-dwellers, who 
burrow high in the chalk cliff and stow them- 
selves away from light and damp like bottles 
of old wine. The custom is old and not in- 
digenous to France, but here it is sufficiently in 
evidence to be remarked by even the traveller 
by train. Here, too, one sees the most remark- 
able of all the coijfes which are worn by any 
of the women along the Loire. This Angevin 
variety, like Angevin architecture, is like none 
of its neighbours north, east, south, or west. 

Students of history will revere Saumur for 
something more than its artistic aspect or its 
wines, for it was a favourite residence of the 
Angevin princes and the English kings, as well 
as being the capital of the pape des Huguenots. 

While Nantes is the real metropolis of the 
Loire, and Angers is singularly up-to-date 
and well laid out, neither of these fine cities 
have a great thoroughfare to compare with the 
broad, straight street of Saumur, which leads 
from the Gare d 'Orleans on the left bank and 
crosses the two bridges which span the branches 
of the Loire, to say nothing of the island be- 
tween, and finally merges into the great na- 
tional highway which runs south into Poitou. 



Anjou and Bretagne 279 

Fine houses, many, if not most of them, dat- 
ing from centuries ago, line the principal 
streets of the town, which, when one has actu- 
ally entered its confines, presents the appear- 
ance of being too vast and ample for its pop- 
ulation. And, in truth, so it really is. Its pop- 
ulation barely reaches fifteen thousand souls, 
whereas it would seem to have the grandeur 
and appointments of a city of a hundred thou- 
sand. The revocation of the Edict of Nantes 
cut its inhabitants down to the extent of twenty 
or twenty-five thousand, and it has never recov- 
ered from the blow. 

In the neighbourhood of Saumur, for a con- 
siderable distance up and down the Loire, the 
hills are excavated into dwelling-houses and 
wine-caves, producing a most curious aspect. 
One continuous line of these cliff villages — 
like nothing so much as the habitations of the 
cliff-dwelling Indians of America — extends 
from the juncture of the Vienne with the Loire 
nearly up to the Fonts de Ce. 

The most curious effect of it all is the multi- 
tude of openings of doorways and windows and 
the uprising of chimney-pots through the chalk 
and turf which form the roof-tops of these 
settlements. 

In many of these caves are prepared the 



280 Old Touraine and the Loire Country 

famous vin mousseux of Saumur, of which 
the greater part is sold as champagne to an 
unsuspecting and indifferent public, not by the 
growers or makers, but by unscrupulous mid- 
dlemen. 

Saumur, like Angers, is fortunate in its cli- 
mate, to which is due a great part of the pros- 
perity of the town, for the ^' Rome of the 
Huguenots ' ' is more prosperous — and who 
shall not say more contents — than it ever 
was in the days of religious or feudal war- 
fare. 

Near Saumur is one shrine neglected by Eng- 
lish pilgrims which might well be included in 
their itineraries. In the Chateau de Moraines 
at Dampierre died Margaret of Anjou and Lan- 
caster, Queen of England, as one reads on a 
tablet erected at the gateway of this dainty 
'' petit castel a tour et creneaux." 



Manoir de la Vignole - Souzay autrefois Dampierre 

Asile et derniere demure 

de I'heroine de la guerre des deux roses 

Marguerite d'Anjou de Lancastre, reine d'Angleterre 

La plus malheureuse des reines, des Espouses, et 

des mferes 

Qui Morut le 25 Aout 1482 

Ag^e de 53 Ans. 



Anjou and Bretagne 281 

The Salvus Murus of the ancients became 
the Saumur of to-day in the year 948, when the 
monk Absalom built a monastery here and sur- 
rounded it with a protecting wall. Up to the 
thirteenth century the city belonged to the 
' ' Angevin kings of Angleterre, ' ' as the French 
historians proudly claim them. 

The city passed finally to the Kings of 
France, and to them remained constantly faith- 
ful. Under Henri IV. the city was governed 
by Duplessis-Mornay, the " pape des Hugue- 
nots/' becoming practically the metropolis of 
Protestantism. Up to this time the chief archi- 
tectural monument was the chateau, which was 
commenced in the eleventh century and which 
through the next five centuries had been ag- 
grandized and rebuilt into its present shape. 

The church of Notre Dame de Nantilly dates 
from the twelfth century and was frequently 
visited by Louis XI. The oratory formerly 
made use of by this monarch to-day contains 
the baptismal fonts. One of the columns of 
the nave has graven upon it the epitaph com- 
posed by King Eene of Anjou for his foster- 
mother. Dame Thiephanie. Throughout, the 
church is beautifully decorated. 

The Hotel de Ville may well be called the 
chief artistic treasure of Saumur, as the cha- 



282 Old Touraine and the Loire Country 

teau is its chief historical monument. It is a 
delightful ensemble of the best of late Gothic, 
dating from the sixteenth century, flanked on 
its fagade by turrets crowned with machicoulis, 
and lighted by a series of elegant windows 
a croisillons. Above all is a gracious campa- 
nile, in its way as fine as the belfry of Bruges, 
to which, from a really artistic standpoint, 
rhapsodists have given rather more than its 
due. 

The interior is as elaborate and pleasing as 
is the outside. In the Salle des Mariages and 
Salle du Conseil are fine fifteenth-century chim- 
neypieces, such as are only found in their per- 
fection on the Loire. The library, of some- 
thing over twenty thousand volumes, many of 
them in manuscript, is formed in great part 
from the magnificent collection formerly at the 
abbeys of Fontevrault and St. Florent. Doubt- 
less these old tomes contain a wealth of mate- 
rial from which some future historian will per- 
haps construct a new theory of the universe. 
This in truth may not be literally so, but it is 
a fact that there is a vast amount of contem- 
porary historical information, with regard to 
the world in general, which is as yet unearthed, 
as witness the case of Pompeii alone, where the- 



Anjou and Bretagne 283 

area of the discoveries forms but a small part 
of the entire buried city. 

At Saumur numerous prehistoric and gallo- 
romain remains are continually being added 
to the museum, which is also in the Hotel de 
Ville. A recent acquisition — discovered in a 
neighbouring vineyard — is a Roman ^' trom- 
pette," as it is designated, and a more or less 
complete outfit of tools, obviously those of a 
carpenter. 

The notorious Madame de Montespan — 
'' the illustrious penitent," though the former 
description answers better — stopped here, in 
a house adjoining the Church of St. John, to- 
day a maison de retrait, on her way to visit 
her sister, the abbess, at Fontevrault. 

From Saumur to Angers the Loire passes 
an almost continuous series of historical guide- 
posts, some in ruins, but many more as proudly 
environed as ever. 

At Treves-Cunault is a dignified Romanesque 
church which would add to the fame of a more 
popular and better known town. It is not a 
grand structure, but it is perfect of its kind, 
with its crenelated fa§ade and its sturdy ar- 
caded towers curiously placed midway on the 
north wall. 

Here one first becomes acquainted with men- 



284 Old Touraine and the Loire Country 

Mrs and dolmens, examples of whicli are to 
be found in the neighbourhood, not so remark- 
able as those of Brittany, but still of the same 
family. 

The Fonts de Ce follow next, still in the midst 
of vine-land, and finally appear the twin spires 
of Angers 's unique Cathedral of St. Maurice. 
Here one realizes, if not before, that he is in 
Anjou; no more is the atmosphere transpar- 
ent as in Touraine, but something of the grime 
of the commercial struggle for life is over all. 

Here the Maine joins the Loire, at a little 
village called La Pointe : ' ' the Charenton of 
Angers, ' ' it was called by a Paris-loving boule- 
vardier who once wandered afield. 

Much has been written, and much might yet 
be written, about the famous Ponts de Ce, which 
span the Loire and its branches for a distance 
considerably over three kilometres. This an- 
cient bridge or bridges (which, with that at 
Blois, were at one time, the only bridges across 
the Loire below Orleans) formerly consisted 
of 109 arches, but the reconstruction of the 
mid-nineteenth century reduced these to a bare 
score. 

As a vantage-point in warfare the Ponts de 
Ce were ever in contention, the Gauls, the Eo- 
mans, the Franks, the Normans, and the Eng- 



Anjou and Bretagne 285 

lish successively taking possession and defend- 
ing them against their opponents. The Fonts 
de Ce is a weirdly strange and historic town 
which has lost none of its importance in a later 
day, though the famous ponts are now remade, 
and their antique arches replaced by more solid, 
if less picturesque piers and piling. They span 
the shallow flow of the Loire water for three- 
quarters of a league and produce a homogene- 
ous effect of antiquity, coupled with the city's 
three churches and its chateau overlooking the 
fortified isle in mid-river, which looks as though 
it had not changed since the days when Marie 
de Medici looked upon it, as recalled by the 
great Rubens painting in the Louvre. Since 
the beginning of the history of these parts, bat- 
tles almost without number have taken place 
here, as was natural on a spot so strategically 
important. 

There is a tale of the Vendean wars, con- 
nected with the '' Eoche-de-Murs " at the Ponts 
de Ce, to the effect that a battalion, left here 
to guard any attack from across the river, was 
captured by the Vendeans. Many of the 
'' Bleus " refused to surrender, and threw 
themselves into the river beneath their feet. 
Among these was the wife of an oflScer, to 
whom the Vendeans offered life if she surren- 



286 Old Touraine and the Loire Country 

dered. This was refused, and precipitately, 
with her child, she threw herself into the flood 
beneath. 

On the largest isle, that lying between the 
Louet and the Loire, is one vast garden or 
orchard of cherry-trees, which produce a pecul- 
iarly juicy cherry from which large quantities 
of guignolet, a sort of " cherry brandy," is 
made. The Angevins will tell you that this was 
a well-known refreshment in the middle ages, 
and was first made by one of those monkish 
orders who were so successful in concocting the 
subtle liquors of the commerce of to-day. 

It is with real regret that one parts from 
the Fonts de Ce, with La Fontaine's couplet on 

his lips : 

" . . . Ce n'est pas petite gloire 
Que d'etre pont sur la Loire. 

Some one has said that the provinces find 
nothing to envy in Faris as far as the trans- 
formation of their cities is concerned. This, to 
a certain extent, is so, not only in respect to 
the modernizing of such grand cities as Lyons, 
Marseilles, or Lille, but in respect to such 
smaller cities as Nantes and Angers, where the 
improvements, if not on so magnificent a scale, 
are at least as momentous to their immediate 
environment. 



Anjou and Bretagne 287 

For the most part these second and third 
class cities are to-day transformed in exceed- 
ingly good taste, and, though many a noble 
monument has in the past been sacrificed, to- 
day the authorities are proceeding more care- 
fully. 

Angers, in spite of its overpowering chateau 
and its unique cathedral, is of a modernity and 
luxuriousness in its present-day aspect which 
is all the more remarkable because of the con- 
trast. Formerly the Angevin capital, from the 
days of King John up to a much later time 
Angers had the reputation of being a town 
'' plus sombre et plus maussade " than any 
other in the French provinces. In Shake- 
speare's '^ King John " one reads of '' black 
Angers," and so indeed is its aspect to-day, 
for its roof-tops are of slate, while many of the 
houses are built of that material entirely. In 
the olden time many of its streets were cut in 
the slaty rock, leaving its sombre surface bare 
to the light of day. One sees evidences of all 
this in the massive walls of the great black- 
banded castle of Angers, and, altogether, this 
magpie colouring is one of the chief charac- 
teristics of this grandly historic town. 

Both the new and the old town sit proudly on 
a height crowned by the two slim spires of the 



288 Old Touraine and the Loire Country 

cathedral. In front, the gentle curves of the 
river Maine enfold the old houses at the base 
of the hillside and lap the very walls of the 
grim fortress-chateau itself, or did in the days 
when the Counts of Anjou held sway, though 
to-day the river has somewhat receded. 

Beyond the ancient ramparts, up the hill, 
have been erected the " quartiers neufs/' with 
houses all admirably planned and laid out, with 
gardens forming a veritable girdle, as did the 
retaining walls of other days which surrounded 
the old chateau and its faubourg. To-day 
Angers shares with Nantes the title of metrop- 
olis of the west, and the Loire flows on its ample 
way between the two in a far more imposing 
manner than elsewhere in its course from 
source to sea. 

Angers does not lie exactly at the juncture 
of the Maine and Loire, but a little way above, 
but it has always been considered as one of 
the chief Loire cities; and probably many of 
its visitors do not realize that it is not on the 
Loire itself. 

The marvellous fairy-book chateau of An- 
gers, with its fourteen black-striped towers, is 
just as it was when built by St. Louis, save that 
its chess-board towers lack, in most cases, their 
coiffes, and all vestiges have disappeared of 







Chateau d' Angers 



Anjou and Bretagne 289 

the charpente which formerly topped them 
off. 

Beyond the rocky formation of the banks 
of the Loire, which crop out below the juncture 
of the Maine and the Loire, below Angers, are 
Savennieres and La Possoniere, whence come 
the most famous vintages of Anjou, which, to 
the wines of these parts, are what Chateau 
Margaux and Chateau Yquem are to the Borde- 
lais, and the Clos Vougeot is to the Bourgui- 
gnons. 

The peninsula formed by the Loire and the 
Maine at Angers is the richest agricultural 
region in all France, the nurseries and the 
kitchen-gardens having made the fortune of 
this little corner of Anjou. 

Angers is the headquarters for nursery-gar- 
den stock for the open air, as Orleans is for 
ornamental and woodland trees and shrubs. 

The trade in living plants and shrubs has 
grown to very great proportions since 1848, 
when an agent went out from here on behalf 
of the leading house in the trade and visited 
America for the purpose of searching out for- 
eign plants and fruits which could be made to 
thrive on French soil. 

Both the soil and climate are very favourable 
for the cultivation of many hitherto unknown 



290 Old Touraine and the Loire Country 

fruits, the neighbourhood of the sea, which, 
not far distant, is tempered by the Gulf Stream, 
having given to Anjou a lukewarm humidity 
and a temperature of a remarkable equality. 

Some of the nurseries of these parts are 
enormous establishments, the Maison Andre 
Leroy, for example, covering an extent of some 
six hundred acres. A catalogue of one of these 
establishments, located in the suburbs of An- 
gers, enumerates over four hundred species of 
pear-trees, six hundred varieties of apple-trees, 
one hundred and fifty varieties of plums, four 
hundred and seventy-five of grapes, fifteen hun- 
dred of roses, and two hundred and nineteen 
of rhododendrons. 

Each night, or as often as fifty railway wag- 
ons are loaded^ trains are despatched from the 
gare at Angers for all parts. When the choux- 
fleurs are finished, then come the petits pois, 
and then the artichauts and other legumes in 
favour with the Paris bon-vivants. 

Near Angers is one of those Csesar's camps 
which were spread thickly up and down Gaul 
and Britain alike. One reaches it by road from 
Angers, and, until it dawns upon one that the 
vast triangle, one of whose equilateral sides is 
formed by the Loire, another by the Maine, 
and the third by a ridge of land stretching be- 



Anjou and Bretagne 291 

tween the two, covers about fourteen kilometres 
square, it seems much like any other neck or 
peninsula of land lying between two rivers. 
One hundred thousand of the Koman legion 
camped here at one time, which is not so very 
wonderful until it is recalled that they lived 
for months on the resources of this compara- 
tively restricted area. 

Before coming to Nantes, Ancenis and Oudon 
should claim the attention of the traveller, 
though each is not much more than a typically 
interesting small town of France, in spite of 
the memories of the past. 

Ancenis has an ancient chateau, remodelled 
and added to in the nineteenth century, which 
possesses some remarkably important con- 
structive details, the chief of which are a great 
tower-flanked doorway and the corps de logis, 
each the work of an Angevin architect, Jean de 
Lespine, in the sixteenth century. Within the 
walls of this chateau Francois II., Due de Bre- 
tagne, and Louis XI. signed one of the treaties 
which finally led up to the union of the Duche 
de Bretagne with the Crown of France. 

Oudon possesses a fine example of a mediae- 
val donjon, though it has been restored in our 
day. 

One does not usually connect Brittany with 



292 Old Touraine and the Loire Country 

the Loire except so far as to recollect that 
Nantes was a former political and social cap- 
ital. As a matter of fact, however, a very con- 
siderable proportion of Brittany belongs to the 
Loire country. 

Anjou of the counts and kings and Bretagne 
of the dukes and duchesses embrace the whole 
of the Loire valley below Saumur, although the 
river-bed of the Loire formed no actual bound- 
ary. Anjou extended nearly as far to the south- 
ward as it did to the north of the vine-clad 
banks, and Bretagne, too, had possession of a 
vast tract south of Nantes, known as the Pays 
de Eetz, which bordered upon the Vendee of 
Poitou. 

All the world knows, or should know, that 
Nantes and St. Nazaire form one of the great 
ports of the world, not by any means so great 
as New York, London, or Hamburg, nor yet 
as great as Antwerp, Bordeaux, or Marseilles, 
but still a magnificent port which plays a most 
important part with the affairs of France and 
the outside world. 

Nantes, la Brette, is tranquil and solid, with 
the life of the laborious bourgeois always in the 
foreground. It is of Bretagne, to which prov- 
ince it anciently belonged, only so far as it 
forms the bridge between the Vendee and the 



1 



Anjou and Bretagne 293 

old duchy ; literally between two opposing feu- 
dal lords and masters, both of whom were hard 
to please. 

The memoirs of this corner of the province 
of Bretagne of other days are strong in such 
names as the Duchesse Anne, the monk Abe- 
lard, the redoubtable Clisson, the infamous 
Gilles de Ketz, the warrior Lanoue, surnamed 
*' Bras de Fer," and many others whose names 
are prominent in history. 

" Ventre Saint Grisf les Dues de Bretagne 
n'etaient pas de petits compagnons! " cried 
Henri Quatre, as he first gazed upon the Cha- 
teau de Nantes. At that time, in 1598, this for- 
tress was defended by seven curtains, six tow- 
ers, bastions and caponieres, all protected by 
a wide and deep moat, into which poured the 
rising tide twice with each round of the clock. 

To-day the aspect of this chateau is no less 
formidable than of yore, though it has been 
debased and the moat has disappeared to make 
room for a roadway and the railroad. 

It was in the chateau of Nantes, the same 
whose grim walls still overlook the road by 
which one reaches the centre of the town from 
the inconveniently placed station, that Mazarin 
had Henri de Gondi, Cardinal de Retz and co- 
adjutor of the Archbishop of Paris, imprisoned 



294 Old Touraine and the Loire Country 

in 1665, because of his offensive partisanship. 
Fonquet, too, after his splendid downfall, was 
thrown into the donjon here by Louis XIV. 

De Gondi recounts in his '' Memoires " how 
he took advantage of the inattention of his 
guards and finally evaded them by letting him- 
self over the side of the Bastion de Mercoeur by 
means of a rope smuggled into him by his 
friend^. The feat does not look a very formid- 
able one to-day, but then, or in any day, it must 
have been somewhat of an adventure for a 
portly churchman, and the wonder is that it 
was performed successfully. At any rate it 
reads like a real adventure from the pages of 
Dumas, who himself made a considerable use 
of Nantes and its chateau in his historical ro- 
mances. 

Landais, the minister and favourite of Fran- 
Qois II. of Bretagne, was arrested here in 1485, 
in the very chamber of the prince, who de- 
livered him up with the remark: ^' Faites jus- 
tice, mais souvenez-vous que vous lui etes re- 
devahle de voire charge/' 

There is no end of historical incident con- 
nected with Nantes 's old fortress-chateau of 
mediaeval times, and, in one capacity or an- 
other, it has sheltered many names famous in 
history, from the Kings of France, from Louis 



Anjou and Bretagne 295 

XII. onward, to Madame de Sevigne and the 
Duchesse de Berry. 

Nantes 's Place de la Bouffai (which, to lovers 
of Dumas will already be an old friend) was 
formerly the site of a chateau contemporary 
with that which stands by the waterside. The 
Chateau de Bouffai was built in 990 by Conan, 
first Due de Bretagne, and served as an official 
residence to him and many of his successors. 

In Nantes 's great but imperfect and unfin- 
ished Cathedral of St. Pierre one comes upon 
a relic that lives long in the memory of those 
who have passed before it : the tomb of Fran- 
gois II., Due de Bretagne, and Marguerite de 
Foix. The cathedral itself is no mean archi- 
tectural work, in spite of its imperfections, as 
one may judge from the following inscription 
graven over the sculptured figure of St. Pierre, 
its patron : 

" L'an mil quatre cent trente-quatre, 
A my-avril sans moult rabattre : 
Au portail de cette ^glise, 
Fut la premiere pierre assise." 

Within, the chief attraction is that master- 
work of Michel Colombe, the before-mentioned 
tomb, which ranks among the world's art-treas- 
ures. The beauty of the emblematic figures 
which flank the tomb proper, the fine chiselling 



296 Old Touraine and the Loire Country 

of the recumbent effigies themselves, and the 
general ensemble is such that the work is bound 
to appeal, whatever may be one's opinion of 
Renaissance sculpture in France. The tomb 
was brought here from the old Eglise des 
Carmes, which had been pillaged and burned in 
the Revolution. 

The mausoleum was — in its old resting- 
place — opened in 1727, and a small, heart- 
shaped, gold box was found, supposed to have 
contained the heart of the Duchesse Anne. The 
coffer was surmounted by a royal crown and 
emblazoned with the order of the Cordeliere, 
but within was found nothing but a scapulary. 
On the circlet of the crown was written in 
relief : 

" Cueur de vertus orn6 
Dignement couronn6. 

And on the box beneath one read : 

«< En ce petit vaisseau, de fin or pur et munde, 

Repose un plus grand cueur que oncque dame eut au monde. 

Anne fut le nom d'elle, en France deux fois Royne 

Et ceste parte terrestre en grand deuil nos demure. 
IX. Janvier M.V.XIII." 

In one respect only has Nantes suffered 
through the march of time. Its magnificent 
Quai de la Fosse has disappeared, a long fa- 
cade which a hundred or more years ago was 



Anjou and Bretagne 



297 



bordered by the palatial dwellings of the great 
ship-owners of the Nantes of a former genera- 
tion. The whole, immediately facing the river 




where formerly swung many ships at anchor, 
has disappeared entirely to make way for the 
railway. 

The islands of the Loire opposite Nantes are 
an echo of the life of the metropolis itself. The 



298 Old Touraine and the Loire Country 

He Feydeau is monumental, the He Gloriette 
hustling and nervous with " affaires," and 
Prairie-au-Duc busy with industries of all 
sorts. 

Coueron, below Nantes on the right bank, is 
sombre with gray walls surrounding its num- 
berless factories, and chimney-stacks belching 
forth clouds of dense smoke. Behind are great 
walls of chalky-white rock crowned with ver- 
dure. Nearly opposite is the little town of Le 
Pellerin graciously seated on the river's bank 
and marking the lower limit of the Loire Nan- 
taise. 

Another hill, belonging to the domain of Bois- 
Tillac and La Martiniere, where was born 
Fouche, the future Due d'Otranta, comes to 
view, and the basin of the Loire enlarges into 
the estuary, and all at once one finds himself 
in the true ^' Loire Maritime." 

At Martiniere is the mouth of the Canal Mar- 
itime a la Loire, which, from Paimbceuf to Le 
Pellerin, is used by all craft ascending the 
river to Nantes, drawing more than four metres 
of water. 

At the entrance of the Acheneau is the Canal 
de Buzay, which connects that stream with the 
more ambitious Loire, and makes of the Lac de 
Grand Lieu a public domain, instead of a pri- 



Anjou and Bretagne 299 

vate property as claimed by the " marquis " 
who holds in terror all who would fish or shoot 
over its waters. All this immediate region 
formerly belonged to the monks of the ancient 
Abbey of Buzay, and it was they who originally 
cut the waterway through to the Loire. About 
half-way in its length are the ruins of the an- 
cient monastery, clustered about the tower of its 
old church. It is a most romantically sad mon- 
ument, and for that very reason its grouping, 
on the bank of the busy canal, suggests in a 
most impressive manner the passing of all 
great works. 

The prosperity of Nantes as a deep-sea port 
is of long standing, but recent improvements 
have increased all this to a hitherto un- 
thought-of extent. Progress has been continu- 
ous, and now Nantes has become, like Eouen, 
a great deep-water port, one of the important 
seaports of France, the realization of a hope 
ever latent in the breast of the Nantais since 
the days and disasters of the Edict and its 
revocation. 

Below Nantes, in the actual '^ Loire Mari- 
time," the aspect of all things changes and the 
green and luxuriant banks give way to sand- 
dunes and flat, marshy stretches, as salty as the 
sea itself. This gives rise to a very consider- 



300 Old Touraine and the Loire Country- 
able development of the salt industry which 
at Bourg de Batz is the principal, if not the 
sole, means of livelihood. 

St. Nazaire, the real deep-water port of 
Nantes, dates from the fifteenth and sixteenth 
centuries, when it was known as Port Nazaire. 
It is a progressive and up-to-date seaport of 
some thirty-five thousand souls, but it has no 
appeal for the tourist unless he be a lover of 
great smoky steamships and all the parapher- 
nalia of longshore life. 

Pomichet, a " station de tains de mer 
tres frequentee; " Batz, with its salt-works; Le 
Croisic, with its curious waterside church, and 
the old walled town of Guerande bring one to 
the mouth of the Loire. The rest is the bil- 
lowy western ocean whose ebb and flow brings 
fresh breezes and tides to the great cities of 
the estuary and makes possible that prosperity 
with which they are so amply endowed. 



CHAPTER XIV. 



SOUTH OF THE LOIRE 



The estuary of the Loire belongs both to 
Brittany and to the Vendee, though, as a mat- 
ter-of-fact, the southern bank, opposite Nantes, 
formed a part of the ancient Pays de Eetz, one 
of the old seigneuries of Bretagne. 

It was Henri de Gondi, Cardinal de Eetz, 
who was the bitter rival of Mazarin. French 
historians have told us that when the regency 
under Anne of Austria began, Mazarin, who 
had been secretary to the terrible Richelieu, 
was just coming into his power. He was a 
subtle, insidious Italian, plodding and patient, 
but false as a spring-time rainbow. Gondi was 
bold, liberal, and independent, a mover of men 
and one able to take advantage of any turn of 
the wind, a statesman, and a great reformer, — 
or he would have been had he but full power. 
It was Cromwell who said that De Retz was the 
only man in Europe who saw through his plansj 

Gondi had entered the church, but he had no 

301 



302 Old Touraine and the Loire Country 

talents for it. His life was free, too free even 
for the times, it would appear, for, though he 
was ordained cardinal, it was impossible for 
him to supplant Mazarin in the good graces 
of the court. As he himself had said that he 
preferred to be a great leader of a party rather 
than a partisan of royalty, he was perhaps not 
so very greatly disappointed that he was not 
able to supplant the wily Italian successor of 
Eichelieu in the favour of the queen regent. 
Gondi was able to control the parliament, how- 
ever, and, for a time, it was unable to carry 
through anything against his will. Mazarin 
rose to power at last, barricaded the streets 
of Paris, and decided to exile Gondi — as 
being the too popular hero of the people. 
Gondi knew of the edict, but stuck out to 
the last, saying: '' To-morrow, I, Henri de 
Gondi, before midday, will be master of 
Paris." Noon came, and he was master of 
Paris, but as he was still Archbishop-Coad- 
jutor of Paris his hands were tied in more ways 
than one, and the plot for his supremacy over 
Mazarin, '' the plunderer," fell through. 

The whole neighbouring region south of the 
Loire opposite Nantes, the ancient Pays de 
Eetz, is unfamiliar to tourists in general, and 
for that reason it has an unexpected if not a 



South of the Loire 303 

superlative charm. It was the bloodiest of the 
battle-grounds of the Vendean wars, and, 
though its monumental remains are not as 
numerous or as imposingly beautiful as those 
in many other parts, there is an interest about 
it all which is as undying as is that of the most 
ornate or magnificent chateau or fortress- 
peopled land that ever existed. 

Not a corner of this land but has seen bloody 
warfare in all its grimness and horror, from the 
days when Clisson was pillaged by the Normans 
in the ninth century, to the guerilla warfare of 
the Vendean republicans in the eighteenth cen- 
tury. The advent of the railway has changed 
much of the aspect of this region and brought 
a twentieth-century civilization up to the very 
walls of the ruins of Clisson and Maulevrier, 
the latter one of the many chateaux of this 
region which were ruined by the wars of Stof- 
flet, who, at the head of the insurgents, obliged 
the nobility to follow the peasants in their 
uprising. 

Now and then, in these parts, one comes upon 
a short length of railway line not unlike that 
at which our forefathers marvelled. The line 
may be of narrow gauge or it may not, but 
almost invariably the two or three so-called 
carriages are constructed in the style (or lack 



304 Old Touraine and the Loire Country 

of style) of the old stage-coach, and they roll 
along in much the same lumbering fashion. 
The locomotive itself is a thing to be wondered 
at. It is a pigmy in size, but it makes the 
commotion of a modern decapod, or one of 
those great flyers which pull the Southern Ex- 
press on the main line via Poitiers and Angou- 
leme, not fifty kilometres away. 

There is a little tract of land lying just south 
of the Loire below Angers which is known as 
" le Bocage Vendeen." One leaves the Loire 
at Chalonnes and, by a series of gentle inclines, 
reaches the plateau where sits the town of 
Cholet, the very centre of the region, and a 
town whose almost only industry is the manu- 
facture of pocket-handkerchiefs. 

The aspect of the Loire has changed rapidly 
and given way to a more vigorous and varied 
topography; but, for all that, Cholet and the 
surrounding country depend entirely upon the 
great towns of the Loire for their intercourse 
with the still greater markets beyond. Like 
Angers, Cholet and all the neighbouring vil- 
lages are slate-roofed, with only an occasional 
red tile to give variety to the otherwise gray 
and sombre outlook. 

En route from Chalonnes one passes Che- 
mille almost the only market-town of any size 



South of the Loire 305 

in the district. It is very curious, with its 
Eomanesque church and its old houses distrib- 
uted around an amphitheatre, like the loges in 
an opera-house. 

This is the very centre of the Bocage, where, 
in Revolutionary times, the Republican armies 
so frequently fought with the bands of Vendean 
fanatics. 

The houses of Cholet are well built, but al- 
ways with that grayness and sadness of tone 
which does not contribute to either brilliancy 
of aspect or gaiety of disposition. Save the 
grand street which traverses the town from 
east to west, the streets are narrow and uncom- 
fortable ; but to make up for all this there are 
hotels and cafes as attractive and as comfort- 
able as any establishments of the kind to be 
found in any of the smaller cities of provincial 
France. 

The handkerchief industry is very consid- 
erable, no less than six great establishments 
devoting themselves to the manufacture. 

Cholet is one of the greatest cattle markets, 
if not the greatest, in the land. The farmers 
of the surrounding country buy bceufs maigres 
in the southwest and centre of France and 
transform them into good fat cattle which in 
every way rival what is known in England as 



306 Old Touraine and the Loire Country 

'' best English." This is accomplished cheaply 
and readily by feeding them with cabbage 
stalks. 

On Saturdays, on the Champ de Foire, the 
aspect is most animated, and any painter who 
is desirous of emulating Rosa Bonheur's 
" Horse Fair " (painted at the great cattle 
market of Bernay, in Normandy) cannot find 
a better vantage-ground than here, for one may 
see gathered together nearly all the cattle types 
of Poitou, the Vendee, Anjou, Bas Maine, and 
of Bretagne Nantaise. 

In earlier days Cholet was far more sad than 
it is to-day; but there remain practically no 
souvenirs of its past. The wars of the Vendee 
left, it is said, but three houses standing when 
the riot and bloodshed was over. Two of the 
greatest battles of this furious struggle were 
fought here. 

On the site of the present railroad station 
Kleber and Moreau fought the royalists, and 
the heroic Bonchamps received the wound of 
which he died at St. Florent, just after he had 
put into execution the order of release for five 
thousand Eepublican prisoners. This was on 
the 17th October, 1793. Five months later 
Stofflet possessed himself of the town and 
burned it nearly to the ground. Not much is 








Donjon oj the Chateau de Clisson 



South of the Loire 3G7 

left to remind one of these eventful times, save 
the public garden, which was built on the site 
of the old chateau. 

La Moine, a tiny and most picturesque river, 
still flows under the antique arches of the old 
bridge, which was held in turn by the Vendeans 
and the Republicans. 

To the west of Cholet runs another line of 
railway, direct through the heart of the Sevre- 
Nantaise, one of those petits pays whose old- 
time identity is now all but lost, even more cele- 
brated in bloody annals than is that region 
lying to the eastward. Here was a country 
entirely sacked and impoverished. Mortagne 
was completely ruined, though it has yet left 
substantial remains of its fourteenth and fif- 
teenth century chateau. Torfou was the scene 
of a bloody encounter between the Vendean 
hordes and Kleber's two thousand Mroiques 
de Mayence. The able Vendean chiefs who 
opposed him, Bonchamps, D'Elbee, and Les- 
cure, captured his artillery and massacred all 
the wounded. 

At the extremity of this line was the strong- 
hold of Clisson, which itself finally succumbed, 
but later gave birth to a new town to take the 
place of that which perished in the Vendean 
convulsion. 



308 Old Touraine and the Loire Country 

Throughout this region, in the valleys of the 
Moine and the Sevre-Nantaise, the rocks and 
the verdure and the admirable, though ill pre- 
served, ruins, all combine to produce as un- 
worldly an atmosphere as it is possible to con- 
ceive within a short half-hundred kilometres 
of the busy world-port of Nantes and the great 
commercial city of Angers. One continually 
meets with ruins that recall the frightful strug- 
gle of Revolutionary times; hence the impres- 
sion that one gets from a ramble through or 
about this region is well-nigh unique in all 
France. 

The coast southward, nearly to La Rochelle, 
is a vast series of shallow gulfs and salt 
marshes which form weirdly wonderful out- 
looks for the painter who inclines to vast ex- 
panses of sea and sky. 

Pornic is a remarkably picturesque little sea- 
side village, where the inflowing and outflowing 
tides of the Bay of Biscay temper the southern 
sun and make of it — or would make of it if 
the tide of fashion had but set that way — a 
watering-place of the first rank. 

It is an entrancing bit of coast-line which 
extends for a matter of fifty kilometres south 
of the juncture of the Loire with the ocean, 
with an aspect at times severe with a waste 



South of the Loire 309 

of sand, and again gracious with verdure and 
tree-clad and rocky shores. 

The great Bay of Bourgneuf and its enfold- 
ing peninsula of Noirmoutier form an artist's 
sketching-ground that is not yet overrun with 
mere dabblers in paint and pencil, and is ac- 
cordingly charming. 

The Bay of Bourgneuf has most of the char- 
acteristics of the Morbihan, without that sever- 
ity and sternness which impress one so deeply 
when on the shores of the great Breton inland 
sea. 

The little town of Bourgneuf -en-Retz, with 
its little port of Colletis, is by no means a city 
of any artistic worth; indeed it is nearly bare 
of most of those things which attract travel- 
lers who are lovers of old or historic shrines; 
but it is a delightful stopping-place for all that, 
provided one does not want to go farther afield, 
to the very tip of the Vendean '' land's end " 
at Noirmoutier across the bay. 

Three times a day a steamer makes the jour- 
ney to the little island town which is a favour- 
ite place of pilgrimage for the Nantais during 
the summer months. Once it was not even an 
island, but a peninsula, and not so very long 
ago either. The alluvial deposits of the Loire 
made it in the first place, and the sea, back- 



310 Old Touraine and the Loire Country 

ing in from the north, made a strait which just 
barely separates it to-day from the mainland. 

On this out-of-the-way little island there are 
still some remains of prehistoric monuments, 
the dolmen of Chiron-Tardiveau, the menhirs 
of Pinaizeaux and Pierre-Levee, and some 
others. In the speech of the inhabitants the 
isle is known as Noirmoutier, a contraction of 
" Nigrum Monasterium/' a name derived from 
the monastery founded here in the seventh cen- 
tury by St. Philibert. 

In the town is an old chateau, the ancient 
fortress-refuge of the Abbe of Her. It is a 
great square structure flanked at the angles 
with little towers, of which two are roofed, 
one uncovered, and the fourth surmounted by 
a heliograph for communicating with the He 
de Yeu and the Pointe de Chenoulin. The view 
from the heights of these chateau towers is 
fascinating beyond compare, particularly at 
sundown on a summer's evening, when the 
golden rays of the sinking sun burnish the coast 
of the Vendee and cast lingering shadows from 
the roof-tops and walls of the town below. To 
the northwest one sees the Hot du Pilier, with 
its lighthouse and its tiny coast-guard fortress ; 
to the north is clearly seen Pornic and the 
neighbouring coasts of the Pays de Eetz and of 



South of the Loire 311 

Bouin with its encircling dikes, — all reminis- 
cent of a little Holland. To the south is the 
narrow neck of Fromentin, the jagged Mar- 
guerites, which lift their fangs wholly above the 
surface of the sea only at low water, and the 
towering cliifs of the lie de Yeu, which rise 
above the mists. 

Just south of the Loire, between Nantes and 
Bourgneuf, is the Lac de Grand-Lieu, in con- 
nection with which one may hear a new render- 
ing of an old legend. At one time, it is said, 
it was bordered by a city, whose inhabitants, 
for their vices, brought down the vengeance of 
heaven upon them, even though they cried out 
to the powers on high to avert the threatened 
flood which rose up out of the lake and over- 
flowed the banks and swallowed the city and 
all evidences of its past. In this last lies the 
flaw in the legend; but, like the history of 
Sodom, of the Ville d'Ys in Bretagne, and of 
Ars in Dauphine, tradition has kept it alive. 

This wicked place of the Loire valley was 
called Herbauge or Herhadilla, and, from St. 
Philibert at the southern extremity of the lake, 
one looks out to-day on a considerable extent 
of shallow water, which is as murderous-look- 
ing and as uncanny as a swamp of the Ever- 
glades. 



312 Old Touraine and the Loire Country 

From the central basin flow two tiny rivers, 
the Ognon and the Boulogne, which are charm- 
ing enough in their way, as also is the route 
by highroad from Nantes, but the gray monot- 
onous lake, across which the wind whistles in 
a veritable tempest for more than six months 
of the year, is most depressing. 

There are various hamlets, with some pre- 
tence at advanced civilization about them, scat- 
tered around the borders of the lake, St. Leger, 
St. Mars, St. Aignan, St. Lumine, Bouaye, and 
La Chevroliere; but in the whole number you 
will not get a daily paper that is less than 
forty-eight hours old, and nothing but the most 
stale news of happenings in the outside world 
ever dribbles through. St. Philibert is the 
metropolis of these parts, and it has no com- 
petitors for the honour. 

At the entrance of the Ognon is the little 
village of Pas say, built at the foot of a low cliff 
which dominates all this part of the lake. It 
is a picturesque little village of low houses 
and red roofs, with a little sandy beach in the 
foreground, through which little rivulets of 
soft water trickle and go to make up the greater 
body. 



CHAPTER XV. 



BERRY AND GEORGE SAND's COUNTRY 



Whether one enters Berry through the val- 
ley of the Cher or the Indre or through the 
gateway of Sancerre in the mid-Loire, the im- 
pression is much 
the same. The his- 
toric province of 
Berry resounds 
again and again 
with the echoes of 
its past, and no 
province adjacent 
to the Loire is 
more prolific in 
the things that in- 
terest the curious, 
and none is so lit- 
tle known as the 
old province which 
was purchased for the Crown by Philippe I. 
in 1101. 

With the interior of the province, that por- 

313 




314 Old Touraine and the Loire Country 

tion which lies away from the river valleys, 
this book has little to do, though the traveller 
through the region would hardly omit the epis- 
copal city of Bourges, and its great transept- 
less cathedral, with its glorious front of quin- 
tupled portals. With the cathedral may well 
be coupled that other great architectural monu- 
ment, the Maison de Jacques Coeur. At Paris 
one is asked, " Avez-vous vu le Louvre? " but 
at Bourges it is always, " Etes-vous alle a 
Jacques CoBur? '' even before one is asked if 
he has seen the cathedral. 

From the hill which overlooks Sancerre, and 
forms a foundation for the still existing tower 
of the chateau belonging to the feudal Counts 
of Sancerre, one gets one of the most wonder- 
fully wide-spread views in all the Loire valley. 
The height and its feudal tower stand isolated, 
like a rock rising from the ocean. From Cosne 
and beyond, on the north, to La Charite, on the 
south, is one vast panorama of vineyard, wheat- 
field, and luxuriant river-bottom. At a lesser 
distance, on the right bank, is the line of the 
railroad which threads its way like a serpent 
around the bends of the river and its banks. 

Below the hill of Sancerre is a huge over- 
grown hamlet — and yet not large enough to 



Berry and George Sand's Country 315 

be called a village — surrounding a most curi- 
ous church (St. Satur), without either nave 
or apse. The old Abbey of St. Satur once 
possessed all the lands in the neighbourhood 
that were not in the actual possession of the 
Counts of Sancerre, and was a power in the 
land, as were most of the abbeys throughout 
France. The church was begun in 1360-70, on 
a most elaborate plan, so extensive in fact 
(almost approaching that great work at La 
Charite) that it has for ever remained uncom- 
pleted. The history of this little churchly 
suburb of Sancerre has been most interesting. 
The great Benedictine church was never fin- 
ished and has since come to be somewhat of 
a ruin. In 1419 the English sacked the abbey 
and stole its treasure to the very last precious 
stone or piece of gold. A dozen flatboats were 
anchored or moored to the banks of the river 
facing the abbey, and the monks were trans- 
ported thither and held for a ransom of a thou- 
sand crowns each. As everything had already 
been taken by their captors, the monks vainly 
protested that they had no valuables with which 
to meet the demand, and accordingly they were 
bound hand and foot and thrown into the river, 
to the number of fifty-two, eight only escaping 
with their lives. A bloody memory indeed for 



316 Old Touraine and the Loire Country 

a fair land which now blossoms with poppies 
and roses. 

Sancerre, in spite of the etymology of its 
name (which comes down from Roman times — 
Sacrum Csesari), is of feudal origin. Its for- 
tress, and the Comte as well, were under the 
suzerainty of the Counts of Champagne, and 
it was the stronghold and refuge of many a 
band of guerilla warriors, adventurers, and 
marauding thieves. 

At the end of the twelfth century a certain 
Comte de Sancerre, at the head of a coterie 
of bandits called Brabagons, marched upon 
Bourges and invaded the city, killing all who 
crossed their path, and firing all isolated dwell- 
ings and many even in the heart of the city. 

Sancerre was many times besieged, the most 
memorable event of this nature being the at- 
tack of the royalists in 1573 against the 
Frondeurs who were shut up in the town. The 
defenders were without artillery, but so habit- 
uated were they to the use of the fronde that 
for eight months they were able to hold the 
city against the foe. From this the fronde 
came to be known as the '' arquebuse de San- 
cerre." 

Sancerre is to-day a ruined town, its streets 
unequal and tortuous, all up and down hill and 



Berry and George Sand's Country 317 




La Tour- J" 
5 O-nearre 



Jja Tour, Sancerre 



318 Old Touraine and the Loire Country 

blindly rambling off into culs-de-sac which 
lead nowhere. Above it all is the fine chateau, 
built in a modern day after the Renaissance 
manner, of Mile, de Crussol, proudly seated on 
the very crest of the hill. Within the grounds, 
the only part of the domain which is free to the 
public, are the ruins of the famous citadel 
which was bought by St. Louis, in 1226, from 
the Comte Thibaut. The only portion of this 
feudal stronghold which remains to-day is 
known as the ' ' Tour des Fiefs. " 

One may enter the grounds and, in the com- 
pany of a concierge, ascend to the platform 
of this lone tower, whence a wonderful view 
of the broad " ruhan lumineux " of the Loire 
spreads itself out as if fluttering in the wind, 
northward and southward, as far as the eye 
can reach. Beside it one sees another line of 
blue water, as if it were a strand detached from 
the broader band. This is the Canal Lateral 
de la Loire, one of those inland waterways of 
France which add so much to the prosperity 
of the land. 

Above Sancerre is Gien, another gateway to 
Berry, through which the traveller from Paris 
through the Orleannais is bound to pass. 

At a distance of five kilometres or more, 
coming from the north, one sees the towers of 




Chateau de Gien 



Berry and George Sand's Country 319 

the chateau of Gien piercing the horizon. The 
chateau is a most curious affair, with its chain- 
built blocks of stone, and its red and black — 
or nearly black — brique, crossed and recrossed 
in quaint geometrical designs. It was built in 
1494 for Dame Anne de Beaujeau, who was 
regent of the kingdom immediately after the 
death of Charles VIII. This building replaced 
another of a century before, built by Jean- 
sans-Peur, where was celebrated the marriage 
of his daughter with the Comte de Guise. 
Gien's chateau, too, may be said to be a land- 
mark on Jeanne d 'Arc's route to martyrdom 
and fame, for here she made her supplication 
to Charles VII. to march on Reims. In Charle- 
magnian times this old castle had a predeces- 
sor, which, however, was more a fortress than 
a habitable chateau; but all remains of this 
had apparently disappeared before the later 
structure made its appearance. Louis XIV. 
and Anne of Austria, regent, held a fugitive, 
impoverished court in this chateau, and heard 
with fear and trembling the cannon-shots of 
the armies of Turenne and Conde at Bleneau, 
j5ve leagues distant. 

At Nevers or at La Charite one does not get 
the view of the Loire that he would like, for, 
in one case, the waterway is masked by a row 



320 Old Touraine and the Loire Country 

of houses, and in the other by a series of walled 
gardens; but at Gien, where everything is 
splendidly theatrical, there is a tree-bordered 
quay and innumerable examples of those co- 
quettish little houses of brick which are not 
beautiful, but which set off many a French 
riverside landscape as nothing else will. 

In Gien's main street there are a multitude 
of rare mellowed old houses with sculptured 
fronts and high gables. This street twists and 
turns until it reaches the old stone and brick 
chateau, with its harmoniously coloured walls, 
making a veritable symphony of colour. Each 
turn in this old high-street of Gien gives a new 
vista of medisevalism quite surprising and 
eerielike, as fantastic as the weird pictures of 
Dore. 

Gien and its neighbour Briare are chiefly 
noted commercially for their pottery. Gien 
makes crockery ware, and Briare inundates the 
entire world with those little porcelain buttons 
which one buys in every land. 

Crossing the Sologne and entering Berry 
from the capital of the Orleannais, or coming 
out from Tours by the valley of the Cher, one 
comes upon the little visited and out-of-the- 
way chateau of Valengay, in the charming 
dainty valley of the Nahon. 



Berry and George Sand's Country 321 

There is some reason for its comparative 
neglect by the tourist, for it is on a cross-coun- 
try railway line which demands quite a full day 
of one's time to get there from Tours and get 
away again to the next centre of attraction, 
and if one comes by the way of the Orleannais, 
he must be prepared to give at least three days 
to the surrounding region. 

This is the gateway to George Sand's coun- 
try, but few English-speaking tourists ever get 
here, so it may be safely called unknown. 

It is marvellous how France abounds in these 
little corners all but unknown to strangers, 
even though they lie not far off the beaten 
track. The spirit of exploration and travel 
in unknown parts, except the Arctic regions, 
Thibet, and the Australian desert, seems to be 
dying out. 

The chateau of Valen§ay was formerly in- 
habited by Talleyrand, after he had quitted the 
bishopric of Autun for politics. It is seated 
proudly upon a vast terrace overlooking one 
of the most charming bits of the valley of the 
Nahon, and is of a thoroughly typical Renais- 
sance type, built by the great Philibert Delorme 
for Jacques d'Etampes in 1540, and only ac- 
quired by the minister of Napoleon and Louis 
XVIII. in 1805. 



322 Old Touraine and the Loire Country 

The architect, in spite of the imposing situ- 
ation, is not seen at his best here, for in no 
way does it compare with his masterwork at 
Anet, or the Tuileries. The expert recognizes 
also the hands of two other architects, one of 
the Blaisois and the other of Anjou, who in 
some measure transformed the edifice in the 
reign of ^f^rangois I. 

The enormous donjon, — if it is a donjon, — 
with its great, round corner tower with a dome 
above, which looks like nothing so much as an 
observatory, is perhaps the outgTOwth of an 
earlier accessory, but on the whole the edifice 
is fully typical of the Renaissance. 

The court unites the two widely different 
terminations in a fashion more or less ap- 
proaching symmetry, but it is only as a whole 
that the effect is highly pleasing. 

Beyond a balustrade a jour is the Jardin 
de la Duchesse, communicating with the park 
by a graceful bridge over an ornamental water. 
In general the apartments are furnished in the 
style of the First Empire, an epoch memorable 
in the annals of Valengay. 

By the orders of Napoleon many royalties 
and ambassadors here received hospitality, and 
in 1808-14 it became a gilded cage — or a 
' ' golden prison, ' ' as the French have it — for 




Chateau de Valencay 



Berry and George Sand's Country 323 

the Prince of the Asturias, afterward Ferdi- 
nand VII. of Spain, who consoled himself dur- 
ing his captivity by constructing wolf -traps in 
the garden and planting cauliflowers in the 
great urns and vases with which the terrace 
was set out. 

There is a great portrait gallery here, where 
is gathered a collection of portraits in minia- 
ture of all the sovereigns who treated with 
Talleyrand during his ministerial reign, among 
others one of the Sultan Selim, painted from 
life, but in secret, since the reproduction of 
the human form is forbidden by the Koran. 

In the Maison de Charite, in the town, be- 
neath the pavement of the chapel, is found the 
tomb of the family of Talleyrand, where are 
interred the remains of Talleyrand and of 
Marie Therese Poniatowska, sister of the cele- 
brated King of Poland who served in the 
French army in 1806. In this chapel also is 
a rare treasure in the form of a chalice en- 
riched with precious stones, originally belong- 
ing to Pope Pius VI., the gift of the Princess 
Poniatowska. 

The Pavilion de la Garenne, — what in Eng- 
land would be called a ' ' shooting-box, " — a 
rendezvous for the chase, built by Talleyrand, 



324 Old Touraine and the Loire Country 

is some distance from the cMteau on the edge 
of the delightful little Foret de Gatine. 

Varennes, just above Valengay, is thought by 
the average traveller through the long gallery 
of charms in the chateau country to be wholly 
unworthy of his attention. As a matter of fact, 
it does not possess much of historical or artis- 
tic interest, though its fine old church dates 
from the twelfth century. 

Ascending the Cher from its juncture with 
the Loire, one passes a number of interesting 
places. St. Aignan, with its magnificent Gothic 
and Eenaissance chateau ; Selles ; Romorantin, 
a dead little spot, dear as much for its sleepi- 
ness as anything else; Vierzon, a rich, indus- 
trial town where they make locomotives, auto- 
mobiles, and mechanical hay-rakes, copying the 
most approved American models; and Mehun- 
sur-Yevre, all follow in rapid succession. 

Mehun-sur-Yevre, which to most is only a 
name and to many not even that, is possessed 
of two architectural monuments, a grand ruin 
of a Gothic fortress of the time of Charles VII. 
and a feudal gateway of two great rounded 
cone-roofed towers, bound by a ligature 
through which a port-cullis formerly slid up 
and down like an act-drop in a theatre. 

Wonderfully impressive all this, and the 




3t^3Y -tUa-nUj\3lf^ % \SQU53^B^'^' 




324 Old Touraine and the Loire Country 

is some distance from tlie chateau on tlie edge 
of the delightful little Foret de Gatine. 

Varennes, just above ValenQay, is thought by 
the average traveller through the long gallery 
of charms in the chateau coiintry to be wholly 
unworthy of his attention. As a matter of fact, 
it does not possess much of historical or artis- 
tic interest, though its fine old church dates 
from the twelfth century. 

Ascending the Cher from its juncture with 
the Loire, one passes a number of interesting 
places. St. Aignan, with its magnificent Gothic 
and Eenaissance chateau ; Selles ; Romorantin, 
a deaS^mmf£^%k"SiW^^^''%r its sleepi- 
ness as anything else; Vierzon, a rich, indus- 
trig,! town where they make locomotives, auti; 
mobiles, and mechanical hay-rakes, copying the 
most approved American models ; and Mehun- 
sur-Yevre, all follow in rapid succession. 

Mehun-stir-Yevre, which to most is only a 
name and to many not even that, is possessed 
of two architectural monuments, a grand ruin 
of a Gothic fortress of the time of Charles VII. 
and a feudal gateway of two great rounded 
cone-roofed towers, bound by a ligature 
through which a port-cullis formerly slid up 
and down like an act-drop in a theatre. 

Wonderfully impressive all this, and the 



Berry and George Sandys Country 325 




Le. Ca.rrlor Dore 



Jio nxoranttn. 
B-Mcrt^. ... 1 9 o y 



Le Carrior Dore, Romorantin 



326 Old Touraine and the Loire Country 

more so because these magnificent relics of 
other days are unspoiled and unrestored. 

Charles VII. was by no means constant in 
his devotions, it will be recalled, though he 
seems to have been seriously enamoured of 
Agnes Sorel — at any rate while she lived. 
Afterward he speedily surrounded himself with 
a galaxy of '' belles demoiselles vetues comme 
reines." They followed him everywhere, and 
he spent all but his last sou upon them, as did 
some of his successors. 

One day Charles VII. took refuge in the 
strong towers of the chateau of Mehun-sur- 
Yevre, which he himself had built and which 
he had frequently made his residence. Here 
he died miserable and alone, — it is said by 
history, of hunger. Thus another dark chapter 
in the history of kings and queens was brought 
to a close. 

If one has the time and so desires, he may 
follow the Indre, the next confluent of the Loire 
south of the Cher, from Loches to '* George 
Sand's country," as literary pilgrims will like 
to think of the pleasant valleys of the ancient 
province of Berry. 

The history of the province before and since 
Philippe I. united it with the Crown of France 
was vivid enough to make it fairly well known. 



Berry and George Sandys Country 327 

but on the whole it has been very little trav- 
elled. It is essentially a pastoral region, and, 
remembering George Sand and her works, one 
has refreshing memories of the idyls of its 
prairies and the beautiful valleys of the Indre 
and the Cher, which join their waters with the 
Loire near Tours. 

If one would love Berry as one loves a 
greater and more famous haunt of a famous 
author, and would prepare in advance for the 
pleasure to be received from threading its high- 
ways and byways, he should read those '' petits 
chefs-d'oeuvre of sentiment and rustic poesy, 
the romances of George Sand. If he has done 
this, he will iind almost at every turning some 
long familiar spot or a peasant who seems 
already an old friend. 

Chateauroux is the real gateway to the coun- 
try of George Sand. 

Nohant is the native place of the great 
authoress, Madame Dudevant, whom the world 
best knows as George Sand; a little by-corner 
of the great busy world, loved by all who know 
it. Far out in the open country is the little 
station at which one alights if he comes by rail. 
Opposite is a '^ petite route " which leads di- 
rectly to the banks of the Indre, where it joins 
the highway to La Chatre. 



328 Old Touraine and the Loire Country 

Nohant itself, as a dainty old-world village, 
is divine. Has not George Sand expressed her 
love of it as fervidly as did Marie Antoinette 
for the Trianon? The French call it a '^ bon 
et Jionnete petit village herrichon." Nude of 
artifice, it is deliciously unspoiled. A delight- 
ful old church, with a curious wooden porch 
and a parvise as rural as could possibly be, 
not even a cobblestone detracting from its rus- 
tic beauty, is the principal thing which strikes 
one's eye as he enters the village. Chickens 
and geese wander about, picking here and there 
on the very steps of the church, and no one 
says them nay. 

The house of George Sand is just to the right 
of the church, within whose grounds one sees 
also the pavilion known to her as the " theatre 
des marionettes/' 

In a corner of the poetic little cemetery at 
Nohant, one sees among the humble crosses 
emerging from the midst of the verdure, all 
weather-beaten and moss-grown, a plain, sim- 
ple stone, green with mossy dampness, which 
marks the spot where reposes all that was 
mortal of George Sand. Here, in the midst of 
this land which she so loved, she still lives in 
the memory of all; at the house of the well- 
lettered for her abounding talent — second only 



Berry and George Sand's Country 329 

to that of Balzac — and in the homes of the 
peasants for her generous fellowship. 

Through her ancestry she could and did claim 
relationship with Charles X. and Louis XVIII. ; 
but her life among her people had nought of 
pretence in it. She was born among the roses 
and to the sound of music, and she lies buried 
amid all the rusticity and simple charm of what 
may well be called the greenwood of her native 
land. 



CHAPTER XVI. 



THE UPPER LOIRE 



The gateway to the upper valley may be 
said to be through the Nivernais, and the capi- 
tal city of the old province, at the juncture of 
the AUier and the Loire. 

After leaving Gien and Briare, the Loire 
passes through quite the most truly picturesque 
landscape of its whole course, the great height 
of Sancerre dominating the view for thirty 
miles or more in any direction. 

Cosne is the first of the towns of note of 
the Nivernais, and is a gay little bourg of eight 
or nine thousand souls who live much the same 
life that their grandfathers lived before them. 
As a place of residence it might prove dull 
to the outsider, but as a house of call for the 
wearied and famished traveller, Cosne, with its 
charming situation, its tree-bordered quays, 
and its Hotel du Grand Cerf, is most attractive. 

Pouilly-sur-Loire is next, with three thou- 

330 



The Upper Loire 



331 




Eglise S. Aignan, Cosne 



332 Old Touraine and the Loire Country 

sand or more inhabitants wholly devoted to 
wine-growing, Pouilly being to the upper river 
what Vouvray is to Touraine. It is not a tour- 
ist point in any sense, nor is it very picturesque 
or attractive. 

Some one has said that the pleasure of con- 
templation is never so great as when one views 
a noble monument, a great work of art, or a 
charming French town for the first time. 
Never was it more true indeed than of the 
two dissimilar towns of the upper Loire, 
Nevers, and La Charite-sur-Loire. The old 
towers of La Charite rise up in the sunlight 
and give that touch to the view which marks 
it at once as of the Nivernais, which all archae- 
ologists tell one is Italian and not French, in 
motive as well as sentiment. 

It is remarkable, perhaps, that the name La 
Charite is so seldom met with in the accounts 
of English travellers in France, for in France 
it is invariably considered to be one of the 
most picturesque and famous spots in all mid- 
France. 

It is an unprogressive, sleepy old place, with 
streets mostly unpaved, whose five thousand 
odd souls, known roundabout as Les Caritates, 
live apparently in the past. 

Below, a stone's throw from the windows of 




Pouilly-sur-Loire 



The Upper Loire 333 

your inn, lies the Loire, its broad, blue bosom 
scarcely ruffled, except where it slowly eddies 
around the piers of the two-century-old dos 
d'ane bridge; a lovely old structure, built, it 
is recorded, by the regiment known as the 
** E/oyal Marine " in the early years of the 
eighteenth century. 

The town is terraced upon the very edge of 
the river, with views up and down which are 
unusually lovely for even these parts. Below, 
almost within sight, is Nevers, while above are 
the heights of Sancerre, still visible in the glow- 
ing western twilight. 

Beyond the bridge rises a giant column of 
blackened stone, festooned by four ranges of 
arcades, the sole remaining relic of the ancient 
church standing alone before the present struc- 
ture which now serves the purposes of the 
church in La Charite. 

The walls which surrounded the ancient town 
have disappeared or have been built into house 
walls, but the effect is still of a self-contained 
old burg. 

In the fourteenth century, during the Hun- 
dred Years' War, the town was frequently be- 
sieged. In 1429 Jeanne d'Arc, coming from 
her success at St. Pierre-le-Moutier, here met 
with practically a defeat, as she was able to 



334 Old Touraine and the Loire Country 

sustain the siege for only but a month, when 
she withdrew. 

La Charite played an important part in the 
religious wars of the sixteenth century, and 
Protestants and Catholics became its occupants 
in turn. Virtually La Charite-sur-Loire be- 
came a Protestant stronghold in spite of its 
Catholic foundation. 

In 1577 it bade defiance to the royal arms of 
the Due d'Alen§on, as is recounted by the fol= 
lowing lines ; 

" Ou allez - vous, h^las ! f urieux insens§s 
Cherchant de Charit6 la proie et la ruine, 
Qui sans rombre de Foy abbatre la pensez 9 

Le canon ne pent rien contre la Charity, 
Plus tot vous d^truira la peste et la famine, 
Car jamais sans Foy n'aurez la Charity." 

In spite of this defiance it capitulated, and, 
on the 15th of May, at the chateau of Ples- 
sis-les-Tours on the Loire, Henri III. cele- 
brated the victory of his brother by a fete 
^' ultra-galante,'* where, in place of the usual 
pages, there were employed '' des dames ves- 
tues en habits d'hommes. ..." Surely a fan- 
tastic and immodest manner of celebrating a 
victory against religious opponents; but, like 
many of the customs of the time, the fete was 
simply a fanatical debauch. 




Porte dii Croux, Nevers 



The Upper Loire 335 

At Nevers one meets the Canal du Nivernais, 
which recalls Dandet 's ' ' La Belle Nivernaise ' * 
to all readers of fiction, who may accept it with- 
out question as a true and correct guide to the 
region, its manners, and customs. 

The chief characteristic of Nevers is that it 
is Italian in nearly, if not quite all, its aspects ; 
its monuments and its history. Its ancient ducal 
chateau, part of which dates from the feudal 
epoch, was the abode of the Italian dukes who 
came in the train of Mazarin, the last of whom 
was the nephew of the cardinal, '' who himself 
was French if his speech was not." 

Nevers has also a charming Gothic cathedral 
(St. Cyr) with a double Romanesque apse (in 
itself a curiosity seldom, if ever, seen out of 
Germany), and, in addition to the cathedral, 
can boast of St. Etienne, one of the most pre- 
cious of all the Romanesque churches of 
France. 

The old walls at Nevers are not very com- 
plete, but what remain are wonderfully expres- 
sive. The Tour Gouguin and the Tour St. Eloi 
are notable examples, but they are completely 
overshadowed by the Porte du Croux, which 
is one of the best examples of the city gates 
which were so plentiful in the France of an- 
other day. 



336 Old Touraine and the Loire Country 

Above Nevers, Decize, Bourbon-Lancy, Gilly, 
and Digoin are mere names which mean noth- 
ing to the traveller by rail. They are busy 
towns of central France, where the bustle of 
their daily lives is of quite a different variety 
from that of the He de France, of Normandy, 
or of the Pas de Calais. 

From Digoin to Eoanne the Loire is followed 
by the Canal Lateral. Eoanne is a not very 
pleasing, overgrown town which has become a 
veritable ville des ouvriers, all of whom are en- 
gaged in cloth manufacture. 

Virtually, then, Eoanne is not much more 
than a guide-post on the route to Le Puy — 
' ' the most picturesque place in the world ' ' — 
and the wonderfully impressive region of the 
Cevennes and the Vivaris, where shepherds 
guard their flocks amid the solitudes. 

Far above Le Puy, in a rocky gorge known 
as the Gerbier-de-Jonc, near Ste. Eulalie, in 
the Ardeche, rises the tiny Liger, which is the 
real source of the mighty Loire, that natural 
boundary which divides the north from the 
south and forms what the French geographers 
call '' la bassin centrale de France." 

THE END. 



INDEX 



Abbeville, 107. 
Abd-el-Kader, Emir, 165. 
Abelard, 293. 
Absalom, 281. 
Acheneau, The, 298. 
Adams, John, 124. 
Alaric, 149. 
Alcuin, Abbe, 206. 
Alengon, Dues d', 195, 334. 
Alengon, Marguerite d', 97» 

150, 151-152. 
AUier, The, 330. 
Amboise and Its Chateau, 

3, 20, 82, 96, 100, 123, 130- 

131, 137, 140, 148-169, 172, 

181, 186, 194, 249. 
Amboise, Family of, 118, 

120-122. 
Amboise, Foret d', 169. 
Amiens, 210. 
Ancenis and Its Chateau, 

II, 21-23, 291. 
Andrelini, Fausto, 66. 
Anet, Chateau d', 107, 177, 

322. 
Ange, Michel, 208, 249. 
Angers and Its Chateau, 7, 

10-13, 15, 21-23, 40, 84, 

275, 278, 280, 283-284, 286- 

290, 304, 308. 
Angouleme, 194, 304. 
Angouleme, Isabeau d', 267. 
Angouleme, Jean d', 89. 
Angouleme, Louise de Sa- 

voie, Duchesse d' (See 

Savoie, Louise de). 



337 



Anjou, 15, 26, 142, 161, 273, 
274, 284, 289-290, 292, 306, 
322. 

Anjou, Counts of, 150, 193, 

208, 232, 239, 267, 288. 
Anjou, Foulques Nerra, 

Comte d' (See Foulques 

Nerra). 
Anjou, Margaret of, 280. 
Anne of Austria, 301-302, 

319- 
Aquitaine, 18, 193. 
Arbrissel, Robert d', 263. 
Arc, Jeanne d', 202, 254-256, 

258-260. 
Ardier, Paul, 115. 
Arques, Chateau d', 9. 
Aumale, Due d', 165. 
Aussigny, Thibaut d', 48. 
Authion, The, 13. 
Autun, 321. 
Auvergne, 15. 
Auvers, 251. 
Auxerre, 17, 119. 
Avignon, 51, 260. 
Azay - le - Rideau and Its 

Chateau, 10, 63, 140, 226, 

238, 240-247. 

Bacon, 40. 
Ballon, 2x5. 

Balue, Cardinal, 194, 196. 
Balzac, Honore de, 3, 6, 20, 
128-129, 137-138, 143, 207- 

209, 234, 239, 329. 
Bardi, Comte de, 108. 



338 



Index 



Barre, De la, 144, 240. 

Barry, Madame du, 169, 
215. 

Beaudoin, Jean, 200. 

Beaufort, A., 138. 

Beaugency and Its Cha- 
teau, 9, 41, 48-53- 

Beau]eau, Anne de, 319, 

Beaulieu, 201-202. 

Beauregard, Chateau de, 
114-116. 

Beauvron, The, 114. 

Becket, 190. 

Belier, Guillaume, 258. 

Bellanger, Stanislas, 135. 

Bellay Family, Du, 5, 128, 

234- 

Belleau, Remy, 128. 

Beringhem, Henri de, 245. 

Bernay, 306. 

Bernier, 57. 

Berry, 7, 15, 56, 123, 313- 
314, 318, 320, 326-329. 

Berry, Counts of, 150. 

Berry, Duchesse de, 295. 

Berthelot, Gilles, 244, 246. 

Berthier, Marechal, 108. 

Beuvron, 87-88. 

Biencourt, Marquis de, 246. 

Blacas, Comte de, 247. 

Blaisois, The, 52, 54, 56-84, 
102, 123-124, 136, 148, 193. 
322. 

Bleneau, 319. 

Blesois, The {See Blaisois, 
The). 

Blois and Its Chateau, 3, 9, 
II, 20, 40, 52-54, 56-84, 88, 
94-95, 98, 100, 107, IIO- 
112, 116-117, 119, 123, 125- 
126, 136, 139, 149, 156, 
160, 164, 167, 174, 184, 186, 
194, 260, 284. 

Blois, Comtes de, 57-59, 62, 
84, 87, 98, 118. 

Blois, Foret de, 54. 

Blondel, 99. 

Bocage, The, 304-305. 



Bohier, Thomas, 174, 182, 

184-186. 
Bois-Tillac, 298. 
Bolingbroke, 42, 183, 
Bonchamps, 306-307. 
Bonheur, Rosa, 306. 
Bonneventure, Chateau de, 

250. 
Bontemps, Pierre, 105. 
Bordeaux, 133, 171, 203, 

292. 
Bordeaux, Due de, 108. 
Bossehosuf, Abbe, 233. 
Bouaye, 312. 
Bouin, 311. 
Boulogne, The, 312. 
Bourbon, Cardinal de, 164. 
Bourbon, Renee de, 264. 
Bourbon-Lancy, 336. 
Bourbonnais, 15. 
Bourdaisiere, Chateau de la, 

169. 
Bourg de Batz, 300. 
Bourges, 15, 314, 316. 
Bourgneuf-en-Retz, 309, 311. 
Bourgogne, 4, 15, 142. 
Bourgueil, 267. 
Bourre, Jean, 233. 
Boyer, 11 1. 
Bracieux, no. 
Brain-sur-Allonnes, 269. 
Brantome, loi, 155, 157, 

158. 
Brenne, 135. 
Bretagne, 15, 26, 3S-36, 57, 

192, 218, 284, 291-293, 

301. 
Bretagne, Anne de, 63, 97, 

120, 168, 196, 209, 234, 

236-238, 293, 296. 
Bretagne, Conan, Due de, 

295- 
Bretagne, Frangois II., Due 

de, 291, 294-296. 
Breze, Pierre de, 195. 
Briare, 320, 330. 
Brigonnet, Cardinal, 42. 
Brinvilliers, 144. 



Index 



339 



Brittany {See Bretagne). 
Broglie, Princesse de, 120. 
Brosse, Pierre de, 234. 
Bruges, 282. 
Brunyer, Abel, 80, 81. 
Buffon, 61, 183. 
Bullion, 1 19. 

Bussy d'Amboise, De, 269. 
Buzay, Abbey of, 299. 
Byron, 138. 

Ccesar, 18, 290. 

Cahors, 260. 

Call, M., 270-272. 

Cain, 251. 

Calixtus II., 264. 

Canal de Brest a Nantes, 

24. 
Canal de Buzay, 298. 
Canal d'Orleans, 36-37. 
Canal du Nivernaise, 17, 

335- 
Canal Lateral, 12, 17, 318, 

336. 
Canal Maritime, 298. 
Candes, 268-270, 276. 
Castellane Family, 250. 
Caumont, De, 195. 
Cellini, 152. 
Chalonnes, 24, 304. 
Chambord and Its Chateau, 

2-3> 20, Z2, 79, 82, 84, 86, 

94-110, 123, 139, 174, 186, 

243, 247-248. 
Chambord, Comte de, 109. 
Chambris, 10. 
Champagne, Counts of, 316. 
Champeigne, 135. 
Champtoce, 24. 
Chanteloup, 154, 169. 
Charlemagne, 206. 
Charles I. (the Bald), 18, 

193- 
Charles II. of England, 82. 
Charles V., Emperor, 130- 

131, 15s, 194- 
Charles VI., 257. 
Charles VII., 150, 188-189, 



194-195, 202, 2ZZ, 250, 254- 
256, 257-260, 268, 319, 324, 
326. 

Charles VIII., 45, 98, 130, 
150, 165, 194-195, 234, 236, 
238-239, 319. 

Charles IX., 107, 122, 180. 

Charles X., 329. 

Charles Martel, 5. 

Charles the Bold of Bur- 
gundy, 44. 

Chartres, 22, 133. 

Chartreuse du Liget, 190. 

Chateaubriand, Comtesse de, 
loi, 130. 

Chateau Chevigne, 22. 

Chateau de la Fontaine, 43. 

Chateau de la Source, 42- 

43- 

Chateaudun and Its Castle, 
21-22. 

Chateaudun, Vicomtes de, 
269. 

Chateau Gaillard, 259. 

Chateau I'Epinay, 22. 

Chateauneuf - sur - Loire, 36, 
84. 

Chateauroux, 327. 

Chateau Serrand, 22. 

Chatillon, 12, 17, 19. 

Chatillon, Cardinal de, 160. 

Chatillon, Comtes de, 61, 68. 

Chaumont and Its Cha- 
teau, II, 20, 107, no, 
116-126, 140. 

Chaumont, Charles de, 120. 

Chaumont, Donatien Le Ray 
de, 123-125. 

Chemille, 304-305. 

Chemille, Petronille de, 263. 

Chenonceaux and Its Cha- 
teau, 10, 63, 107, 118, 140, 
148, 165, 169, 171-187, 234, 
243, 247, 251. 

Cher, The, 10, 21, 91, 171- 
173, 177-178, 180, 183, 191, 
215, 275, 313, 320, 324, 
326-327. 



340 



Index 



Chevalier, Abbe, 243. 
Cheverny and Its Chateau, 

82, 110-114, 133- 
Cheverny, Philippe Hu- 

rault, Comte de, iii. 
Chicot, 201. 
Chinon and Its Chateaux, 

10, 92, 140, 171, 193, 202, 

239, 241, 247, 250-261, 

268. 
Chinon, Foret de, 241, 247. 
Chiron-Tardiveau, 310. 
Choiseul, Due de, 164, 169. 
Cholet, 275, 304-307- 
Cholet, Comte de, 115. 
Cinq-Mars and Its Ruins, 

7, 21, 137, 220, 227-232, 

238, 274. 
Cinq-Mars, Henri, Marquis 

de, 228, 229-231, 234. 
Cinq-Mars, Marquise de, 230, 

231. 
Claude of France, 72, 80, 

97, 155- 
Clement, Jacques, 78. 
Clermont-Ferrand, 15. 
Clery, 32, 41, 44-46, 214. 
Clisson and Its Chateau, 8, 

303, 307- 
Clisson, 293. 
Clopinel, Jehan (See Jean 

de Meung). 
Clouet, 112. 
Clevis, 43, 149, 253. 
Coeuvres, 170. 
Coligny, 160-161. 
Colletis, 309. 
Colombe, Michel, 207-208, 

295- . 
Commines, De, 45. 
Conde, Prince de, 119, 160- 

161, 168, 319. 
Conti, Princesse de, 234. 
Cormeri, Citizen, 215. 
Cormery, 133. 
Cosne, 18, 314, 330. 
Cosson, The, 2, 97-98, loi. 
Coteau de Guignes, 52. 



Coueron, 298. 
Coulanges, M. de, 18. 
Coulmiers, 40. 
Cour-Cheverny, no, 114, 

133- 
Cousin, Jean, 105.^ 
Coutanciere, Chateau of, 

269. 
Coxe, Miss, 125. 
Crequy, Marquise de, 183. 
Croix de Monteuse, 16. 
Cromwell, 301. 
Crussol, Mile, de, 318. 

Dalahaide, 77. 

Dampierre, 280. 

Dante, 203. 

Danton, 144. 

Daudet, 17, 335. 

Decize, 336. 

Delavigne, Casimir, 34. 

Delorme, Marion, 230-231. 

Delorme, Philibert, 321. 

Deneux, Mile., 215. 

Descartes, 3, 208. 

Digoin, 336. 

Dijon, 15. 

Dino, Due de, 115. 

Dive, The, 13. 

Domfront, Chateau de, 9. 

Dore, 207, 320. 

Duban, 73. 

Ducos, Roger, 164-165. 

Dudevant, Madame (See 

Sand, George). 
Duguesclin, 49. 
Dumas, 3, 6, 47, 82, 201, 

268-269, 294-295. 
Dunois, The, 56. 
Dupin, M. and Mme., 183, 

187. 
Duplessis-Mornay, 281. 

Eckmiihl, Prince, 42. 

E-fHats Family, D' (See 

Cinq-Mars) . 
Elbee, D', 307. 



Index 



341 



Eleanor of Portugal, 155. 
Bleanore of Guienne, 267. 
Embrun, 44, 45. 
Epernon, Due d', 194. 
Este, Cardinal d', 180. 
Estrees, Gabrielle d', 164, 

169-170. 
Btampes, Duehesse d', loi, 

130-131, 155- 
Etampes, Jaeques d', 321. 
Etretat, 251. 
Eure et Loir, Department 

of, 35. 

Falaise, Chateau de, 9. 
Ferdinand VII. of Spain 

323- 
Finistere, 35. 
Flaubert, 6. 
Foix, Marguerite de, 295- 

296. 
Folie-Siffait, 26. 
Fontainebleau, 97. 
Fontaine des Sables Mou- 

vants, 52. 
Fontenelle, 183. 
Fontenoy, 107. 
Fontevrault, Abbey of, 3, 

263-267, 282. 
Force, Piganiol de la, 106. 
Forez, Plain of, 17. 
Fouche, 298. 
Foulques Nerra, 93, 201, 

232, 234. 
Foulques V., 238. 
Fouquet, 164, 294. 
Frangois I., 60-64, 69-70, 72- 
73, 75, 89, 94-99, loi, 104- 
107, 109, 114, 118, 130, 148, 
151-156, 171-172, 174-176, 
189-190, 194, 196-197, 200, 
244-245, 264, 322. 
Frangois II., 156-162, 168, 

181, 215. 
Franklin, Benjamin, 123- 

124, 125. 
Freiburg, 22. 
Fromentin, 311, 



Galles, Prince de, 49. 
Gaston of Orleans, 59-60, 

62, 68-70, 79-82. 
Gatanais, The, 36. 
Gatine, Foret de, 324. 
George IV., 169. 
Gerbier-de-Jonc, 16, 336. 
Gien and Its Chateau, 8, 18, 

19, 202, 318-320, 330. 
Gilly, 33^- 
Giverny, 251. 
Gondi, Henri de, 293-294, 

301-302. 
Goujon, Jean, 105, 179, 244. 
Gregory of Tours, 57. 
Grise-Gonelle, Geoffroy, 195. 
Grottoes of Ste. Rade- 

gonde, 218. 
Guerande, 300. 
Guise, Henri, Due de (Le 
Balafre), 67, 69-70, 73-78, 
157, 160, 162, 164, 168, 
180, 234. 

Haute Loire, Department 

of, II. 

Henri II., 69, 99, 107, 109, 

115, 156, 158, 171-172, 

174-177, 183-184, 197, 200. 
Henn III., 69-70, 73, 75-78, 

182, 195, 201, 334. 
Henri IV. {de Navarre), 

78, 164, 170, 201, 281, 

293. 
Henry II. of England, 190, 

208, 238, 257-258, 267. 
Henry VIII. of England, 

107. 
Holbein, 152. 
Hugo, Victor, 37. 
Huismes, 250. 
Hurault, Philippe, 11 1, 112. 

He de Yeu, 310-311. 
He Feydeau, 298. 
He Gloriette, 298. 
He St. Jean, 149. 
Hot du Pilier, 310. 



342 



Index 



Indre, The, lo, 21, 191-192, 
240, 243-244, 247, 275, 313, 
326-327. 

Indre et Loire, Departe- 
ment d', 142. 

Jahel, Miss, 125. 

James V. of Scotland, 157. 

James, Henry, 14, 189, 204, 

251. 
Jargeau, 2,^. 
Jean de Meung, 46-47. 
Jean-sans-Peur, 319. 
Jean-sans-Terre, 193, 267. 
Jeanne d'Arc, 33-35, 38, 49. 

319, 333- 
Jeanne of France, 209. 
John, King, 287. 
Joue, 215. 
Juvenet, 34. 

Kleber, 306, 307. 

La Beauce, 38, 41, 53, 87, 

141. 
" La Briche," 270-272. 
Lac de Grand Lieu, 298- 

299, 311-312. 
Lac d'Issarles, 16. 
La Chapelle, 43. 
La Charite, 17-18, 314-315. 

319, 332-334- 
La Chatre, 327. 
La Chevroliere, 312. 
Lafayette, Madame de, 109. 
La Fontaine, 128, 286. 
La Martiniere, 298. 
La Motte, 87-88. 
Landais, 294. 

Landes, Houdon des, 137. 
Langeais and Its Chateau, 

7, 21, 82, 133, 140, 165, 

174, 224, 232-241, 247. 
Languedoc, 15. 
Lanoue, 293. 
Lanterne de Rochecorbon, 

220. 
La Pointe, 13, 22-23, 284. 



La Possoniere, 289. 

Largay, 10. 

La Rochelle, 208, 308. 

Lauzun, 164. 

Lavedan, 31-32. 

Layon, The, 13. 

Le Croisic, 300. 

Le Havre, 27. 

Lemaitre, Jules, 34. 

Lemercier, 261-262. 

Lenoir, 57. 

Lenotre, 43. 

Lepage, 35. 

Le Pellerin, 298. 

Le Puy, 4-5, 10, 16, 137, 
336. 

Leray, M., 120. 

Les Andelys, Chateau de, 9. 

Lescure, 307. 

Lespine, Jean de, 291. 

Liger, The, 336. 

Lille, 286. 

Lille, Abbe de, 107. 

" Limieul, La Demoiselle 
de" (See Tour, Isabelle 
de la). 

Limousin, The, 109. 

Lisieux, 92. 

Loches and Its Chateaux, 
3, 9-10, 130, 133, 140, 142, 
188-202, 250, 266, 326. 

Loches, Foret de, 190. 

Loir, The, 13, 21. 

Loir et Cher, Department 
of the, 35, 57. 

Loire, The, i, 3-30, 32, 34- 
38, 40-41, 43, 50-51, 53-54, 
56, 58, 64-65, 68, 92, 95-97, 
101-102, no, 116-118, 120- 
122, 124, 129, 133, 134, 
137, 140-142, 148-149, 156, 
163, 171, 173, 177-178, 191, 
196, 208, 215, 220-223, 225, 
227-228, 232, 236, 240, 257, 
259-260, 267, 273, 275-276, 
278-279, 282-286, 288-290, 
292-293, 297-302, 304, 308- 
309, 311, 313-314, 318-319, 



Index 



343 



324, 326-327, 330, 332-334, 
336. 

Loiret, The, 41-43. 

Loiret, Department of the, 
35-36. 

Lorraine, Cardinal de, 157, 
180. 

Lorraine, Marie de, 157. 

Lorris, 37. 

Lorris, Guillaume de, 37, 46. 

Lot, The, 260. 

Louet, The, 286. 

Louis IL {Le Begue), 150. 

Louis IX. (See St. Louis). 

Louis XL, 5, 32, 41, 44-46, 
48, 69, 130-131, ISO, 154, 
194. I9S> 211-212, 214-218, 
232-233, 253, 257-258, 268, 
281, 291. 

Louis XIL, 60-61, 64, 66, 
83, 97, 120, 122, 151, 167, 
194-195, 209, 215, 238, 294. 

Louis XIIL, 63, 99, 107, 
139, 222, 224, 228, 230- 
231. 

Louis XIV., 32, ■ 82-83, 98- 
99, 107, 109, III, 164, 215, 
227, 232, 245, 247, 294, 

319- 
Louis XV., 54, 84, 107, 164, 

169, 215. 
Louis XVI., 32, 123. 
Louis XVIII. , 321, 329. 
Louis Philippe, 165. 
Louvre, The, 130, 285. 
Lubin, M., 126. 
Luynes and Its Chateau, 

21, 222-227. 
Luynes Family, 222, 224, 

227, 234. 
Lyonnais, 15. 
Lyons, 16, 203, 286. 
Lyons, Foret de, 87. 

Madon, 126. 
Maille, Comte de, 227. 
Maine, The, 12-13, 21-23, 
284, 288-290. 



Maintenon, Madame de, 109. 
Malines, yj. 

Mame et Fils, Alfred, 205. 
Mansart (elder), 62, 79. 
Marguerites, The, 311. 
Marie Antoinette, 328. 
Marigny, De, 54. 
Marmoutier, Abbey of, 218- 

220, 266. 
Marques, Family of, 185. 
Marsay, M. de, 190. 
Marseilles, 27, 136, 203, 286, 

292. 
Martel, Geoffroy, 253. 
Maulevrier, Chateau of, 

303. 
Mauves, Plain of, 26. 
Mayenne, 21. 
Mayenne, The, 21. 
Mazarin, 6, 293, 301-302, 

335- . 
Medici, Catherine de, 73-79, 

107, 118-119, 122-123, 156- 

157. 160-162, 168, 175-182, 

184-185. 
Medici, Marie de, 194, 285. 
Mehun - sur - Yevre and Its 

Chateau, 324-326. 
Mello, Dreux de, 193. 
Menars and Its Chateau, 

53-54- 
Mer, 52-53. 
Metz, 40. 
Meung-sur-Loire, 41, 44, 46- 

48. 
Micy, Abbaye de, 43. 
Mignard, 112. 
Moine, The, 307-308. 
Moliere, 108. 
Montbazon, 10. 
Montespan, Madame de, 283. 
Montesquieu, 183. 
Montgomery, 158, 175. 
Montjean, 24. 
Montlivault, 53. 
Montmorency, Connetahle 

de, 174. 
Montpellier, Castle of, 231. 



344 



Index 



Montpensier, Charles de, 

154-155- 

Montrichard and its Don- 
jon, 9-IO, 91-93- 

Montsoreau, 268-270, 276. 

Moraines, Chateau de {See 
Dampierre). 

Moreau, 306. 

Moret, 251. 

Morrison, 81. 

Mortagne, 307. 

Mosnier, 112. 

Moulins, 15. 

Muides, 53. 

Nahon, The, 320-321. 
Nantes and Its Chateau, 3, 

7-8, 12-13, 23, 25-28, 40, 

59, 84, 133, 207, 278-279, 

286, 288, 291-302, 308, 311- 

312. 
Napoleon I., 83, 138, 164, 

321-322. 
Napoleon III., SS. 
Napoleon, Louis, 165. 
Narbonne, 231. 
Navarre, Marguerite of (See 

Alengon, Marguerite d'). 
Nemours, Due de, 157. 
Nepveu, Pierre, 104. 
Nevers, 4, 6, 11, 15, 17, 137, 

319, 332-333, 335-336. 
Nini, 125. 
Nivemais, The, 15, 330, 

332. 
Nohant, 327-329. 
Noirmoutier, 309-310. 
Normandy, 85, 92, 306. 

Ognon, The, 312, 

Onzain, 116. 

Orleannais, The, 4, 10, 15, 

19, 23, 30-57, 318, 320- 

321. 
Orleans, 7-8, 10-12, 15, 17, 

19, 30-35, 37-41, 43, 52, 

133, 137, 256, 258, 270, 

284, 289. 



Orleans Family, 63, 65-66, 
69, 140, 165, 231, 234 (See 
also Gaston of Orleans). 

Orleans, Foret d', 39-40. 

Oudon, 25-26, 291. 

Paimboeuf, 298. 

Paris, 13, 30, 2,3, 42, 79, ii9, 

124, 136, 139-140, 229-230, 

284, 302, 314. 
Parme, Due de, 108. 
Parmentier, 80. 
Pas de Calais, 192. 
Passay, 312. 
Passy-sur-Seine, 124. 
Pays de Retz, 292, 301-302, 

310. 
Penthievre, Due de, 164. 
Pepin, 193. 

Philippe I., 313, 326. 
Philippe II. {Auguste), 93, 

193, 238. 
PhiUppe III. {Le Hardi), 

234- 
Philippe IV. (Le Bel), 49. 
Pierrefonds, Chateau of, 

186. 
Pierre-Levee, 310. 
Pilon, Germain, 105. 
Pinaizeaux, 310. 
Pius VI., 323. 
Plantagenet, Henry (See 

Henry II. of England). 
Plantin, Christopher, 205. 
Plessis, Armand du (See 

Richelieu, Cardinal ) . . 
Plessis-les-Tours, 7, 150, 

211-218, 334. 
Pointe de Chenoulin, 310. 
Poitiers, 304. 
Poitiers, Diane de, 118, 123, 

130, 155, 172, 174-178, 183, 

187, 197- 
Poitou, 278, 292, 306. 
Pompadour, La, 215. 
Poniatowska, Marie The- 

rese, 323. 
Pont Aven, 251. 



Index 



345 



Fonts de Ce, 21-22, 275, 279, 

284-286. 
Pornic, 308, 310. 
Pornichet, 300. 
Port Boulet, 270. 
Pouilly, 18, 330-332. 
Prairie-au-Duc, 298. 
Primaticcio, 152. 
Primatice, 99. 
Puy-de-D6me, 16. 

Rabelais, Frangois, 3, 128, 

143-144, 239-240, 254-256, 

260. 
Rambouillet, Foret de, 87. 
Reims, 319. 
Renaudie, Jean Barri de la, 

161. 
Rene, King, 23, 281. 
Rennes, 15. 
Rets, Cardinal de (See 

Gondi, Henri de). 
Rets, Gilles de, 24, 293. 
Rhine, The, 13, 26. 
Rhone, The, 13, 23, 260. 
Richard Cceur de Lion, 93, 

193, 267. 
Richelieu, 260-262. 
Richelieu, Cardinal, 224, 228, 

231-232, 260-262, 301-302. 
Roanne, 12, 16-17, 336. 
Rochecotte, 250. 
Rochecotte, Chateau de, 

249-250. 
Romorantin and Its Cha- 
teau, 85, 88-89, 324. 
Ronsard, 128, 157, 180, 240. 
Rouen, 92, 119, 121-122, 

203, 221, 299. 
Rousseau, Jean Jacques, 

172, 183-184, 187. 
Roy, Lucien, 235. 
Royale, Madame, 109. 
Rubens, 285. 
Ruggieri, Cosmo, 78-79, 

122-123. 
Russy, Foret de, 114. 
Saint Gelais, Guy de, 245. 



Sancerre and Its Chateaux, 
18, 137, 313-318, 330, 333- 

Sancerre, Counts of, 314- 
316. 

Sand, George, 7, 321, 326- 

329- 
San Juste, Monastery of, 

131. 
Saone, The, 23. 
Sardini, Scipion, 119. 
Sarthe, The, 13, 21. 
Saumur and Its Chateau, 

21, 119-120, 142, 171, 221- 

222, 259, 274-283, 292. 
Sausac, Chateau of, 202. 
S ansae. Seigneur de, 215. 
Savennieres, 289. 
Savoie, Louise de, 151. 
Savoie, Philippe de, 195. 
Saxe, Maurice de, 107-108. 
Scott, Sir Walter, 166, 211, 

216, 218. 
Sedan, 40. 
Seine, The, 4, 13, 25, 36, 

121, 221. 
Selles, 10, 324. 
Sertio, 100. 
Sevigne, Madame de, 18, 

276, 295. 
Sforsa, Ludovic, 197. 
Shenstone, 106. 
Siegfreid, Jacques, 234. 
Sologne, The, 38, 52-53, 56, 

84-94, 97> loi, no, 148, 

320. 
Sorel, Agnes, 152, 188-189, 

194, 196, 201-202, 250, 326. 
Stael, Madame de, 1 19-120. 
St. Aignan and Its Chateau, 

10, 312, 324. 
Stanislas of Poland, King, 

107-108. 
St. Ay, 43-44- 

St. Benoit-sur-Loire, 10, 19. 
St. Claude, 54. 
St. Cyr, 215. 
St. Die, S3. 
Ste. Eulalie, 336. 



*v. 



346 



Index 



Stendahl, 128. 

St. Etienne, 5, 16. 

St. Florent, Abbey of, 282, 

306. 
St. Galmier, 16. 
St. Georges-sur-Loire, 22. 
St. Leger, 312. 
St. Liphard, 48. 
St. Louis, 37, 193, 288, 318. 
St. Lumine, 312. 
St. Mars, 312. 
St. Martin, 5, 149, 209-211, 

218, 220, 253, 268. 
St. Mesme, 253. 
St. Mesmin, 41, 43. 
St. Nazaire, 23, 28, 292, 300. 
StoMet, 303, 306. 
St. Ours, 193. 
St. Philibert, 311-312. 
St. Philibert, 310. 
St. Pierre-le-Moutier, 333. 
St. Rambert, 17. 
St. Sauveur, 238. 
Strasburg, 22. 
St. Symphorien, 218. 
St. Trinite, Abbey of, 266. 
Stuart, Mary, 157-162, 168, 

181. 
St. Vallier, Cotnte de, 175, 

197. 
Suevres, 53. 
Sully, 19. 

Talleyrand, 250, 321, 323. 

Tasso, 180. 

Tavers, 52. 

Terry, Mr., 187. 

Texier, 22. 

Thezee, 10. 

Thibaut-le-Tricheur, 259. 

Thibaut III., 253. 

Thiephanie, Dame, 281. 

Thouet, The, 13. 

Thoury, Comtesse, 105. 

Torfou, 307. 

Toulouse, 15. 

Tour, Isabelle de la, 119. 

Touraine, 1-4, 6-9, 15, 19- 



21, 23, 32, 54, 56, 79, 85, 
92, 102, 105, 121, 128-148, 
161, 164, 169, I72-I73» 176, 
183, 204, 215, 220, 229-230, 
233-234, 238, 243-244, 246, 
251, 260, 273, 275, 284, 
332. _ 

Touraine, Comtes de, 253. 

Tours, 3, 4, 7, 8, lo-ii, 20- 
21, 40, 57, 84, 116-117, 120, 
132-133, 137, 148-149, 166, 
171-172, 200, 203-211, 215, 
221-222, 224-225, 238-239, 
246, 253, 266, 274, 276-277, 
320-321, 327. 

Treves- Cunault, 283-284. 

Turenne, 319. 

Turner, 12. 

Usse and Its Chateau, 241, 
247-249. 

ValetiQay and Its Chateau, 
320-324. 

Valentine de Milan, 66. 

Valentinois, Duchesse de 
(See Poitiers, Diane de). 

Vallee du Vendomois, 274. 

Valois, Marguerite de (sis- 
ter of Frangois I.) (See 
Alengon, Marguerite d'). 

Valois, Marguerite de {de 
Navarre), 180. 

Van Eyck, 152. 

Varennes, 218, 324. 

Varennes, The, 135. 

Vasari, 153. 

Vauban, 247. 

Vaudemont, Louise de, 182. 

Vendome, 22, 266. 

Vendome, Cesar de, 164. 

Vendomois, The, 56-57. 

Veron, 135. 

Versailles, 43, 60, 86, 98, 
139, 261. 

Vibraye, Marquis de, iii. 

Vienne, The, 10, 21, 251, 
259-260, 267-268, 275, 279. 



Index 



347 



Vierzon, 84-85, 324. 
Vigny, Alfred de, 128-129. 
Villandry, Chateau de, 238. 
Villaumere, Chateau de la, 

250. 
Villon, Frangois, 48. 
Vinci, Leonardo da, 59, 72, 

100, 152-153, 166, 169, 174. 
Viollet-le-Duc, 185. 



Vivarais Mountains, 16. 
Voltaire, 42, 142, 183. 
Vorey, il, 16. 
Vouvray, 222, 332. 

Yonne, The, 17. 
Young, Arthur, 86. 

Zamet, Sebastian, 170. 



m 



